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MEMORIAL 



OF 



Eliza Butler Thompson. 



By HER DAUGHTER. 












i» JYU..J.Q.-JL.S1 

NEW YORK: 
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & CO., 

900 Broadway, corner Twentieth Street. 



.1+7 $1 



Copyright, 1879, 
By Anson D. F. Randolph & Co. 



Unversity Press: 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



V 



"fgott can, if gott Ml, hz among tfje tot of foomnt, 
sfttcj ag make others jjlao tfjat tfjeg tare 60m." 



This sketch was written with the intention of 
printing it, like the memorial of my two brothers, 
for family friends. 

Others, outside the circle of relatives, who knew 
and loved my mother, and shared in the missionary 
work of her later years, have expressed a wish to read 
the story of her life, and for them it is published. 

E. T. S. 



CONTENTS. 

* 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. FAMILY INFLUENCES 7 

II. YOUTH AND MARRIAGE 29 

III. THE HEAT AND BURDEN OF THE DAY . . 75 

IV. THE EVENING TIME 125 



CHAPTER I. 
FAMILY INFLUENCES. 



I. 

FAMILY INFLUENCES. 

" That things are not so ill with yoic and me as 
they might have been, is half owing to the 
number tvho lived faithfully a hidden life 
and rest m nnvisited tombs" 

MlDDLEMARCH. 

\ FAMILY connection, curious in such matters, 
"*" has traced Mrs. Thompson's ancestry to a 

certain nonconformist English clergyman, Stephen 
Butler, who lived late in the sixteenth century. - 

Of the village where his rectory stood we know 
nothing, and have only scattered hints of the forces 
that blended in his mould. It is true the same anti- 
quarian asserts that Stephen and all the Butlers de- 
scended from a certain Count Brion of Normandy; 
the name gradually changed to Boteler; and there 
is record in Froissart's Chronicles of the honorable 
deeds of Sir John Boteler in 1342. He bore the 
same name with his ancestor, one of William's knights, 
who came to England three centuries before. The 
only definite tradition that remains is of the marked 



io Family Influences, 

religiousness of the family. The mottoes on their 
shields are such as these, — 

"Qu>e Recta Sequor." 
"Mea Gloria Crux." 
"Timor Domini Fons Vitje." 

"SUBLIMIORA PETAMUS." 

So when it came to Stephen Butler to decide 
between adherence to his convictions and worldly 
success, he was true to the leading qualities of his 
race. 

He was one of the two hundred clergymen, in the 
days of Parker and Laud, who were driven from their 
livings for their refusal to subscribe to the Three 
Articles. It is said that in the sermons preached to 
their parishes on the last Sunday before they were 
ejected, not one of these clergymen alluded to his 
personal troubles, but each comforted his people, ex- 
horting them to Christian faith and patience. " They 
knew that they were pilgrims, and looked not much 
on these things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, 
their dearest country, and quieted their spirits." 

It was on the fly-leaf of his copy of Calamy's book, 
giving an account of these men, that President Stiles 
wrote, " Egregiis hisce sit anima mea cum Puritanis." 

Succeeding persecution evidently did not dim the 
" Sublimiora " that Stephen Butler " sought," for in 
1632 we find the name of his descendant, Deacon 



Family Infltiences. 1 1 

Richard Butler, on the records of the Puritan colony 
of Cambridge, Mass. 

Richard Butler was one of the company who went 
through the wilderness in 1636, and formed the set- 
tlement at Hartford, on the Connecticut River; and 
more than one of the family lie in the old burial- 
ground behind the Centre Church. 

A hundred and fifty years later, Daniel Butler went 
up the river from Hartford to Northampton, and 
established himself there as a merchant. In 180 1 
his wife, Anna Welsh, died, leaving three children, — 
Charles Parker, Anna, and Abigail Welsh. 

October 26, 1802, he married Elizabeth Simpkins 
of Boston. Their fourth child in a family of seven 
was Elizabeth, born October 4, 1809. 

Elizabeth Simpkins was the daughter of John Simp- 
kins and Mehetible Kneeland. John Simpkins was 
long a deacon in the Old North Church, and was the 
last gentleman in Boston who clung to the fashion of 
short-clothes and knee-buckles. The knee and shoe 
buckles are still preserved, with a bit of pink silk 
from his wife's wedding-dress, remnants of her neck- 
lace, and her little embroidered wedding-slippers, with 
the high narrow heels. 

At the time of her marriage to John Simpkins, 
Mehetible Kneeland was a widow, — Mrs. Torrey. 
Kneelands had been known in Boston from colonial 



1 2 Family Influences. 

times. She was descended from John Kneeland, who 
is supposed to have been of Scotch origin, from the 
fact that he was one of the founders of the Scots' 
Charitable Society, established in Boston in 1657. 
He was a man of wealth and mark. Beginning as a 
stone-mason, he built the Old South Church and the 
old Hancock House. He was one of the original 
members of the Old South. As his fortune in real 
estate increased, Kneeland Street was named for him. 
The street extended from Washington (then Orange) 
Street to the water, which then, in 1777, extended up 
to Harrison Avenue (then Fleet Street), and at the 
foot was Kneeland's Wharf. 

His son Samuel printed the first Bible in Boston 
in 1749. His second son, William, the father of 
Mehetible, was a physician, President of the Massa- 
chusetts Medical Society, and a person of note in his 
time. 

The daughter was trained in a straiter than the 
straitest sect, in what was called Hopkinsianism, an 
offshoot of New England Calvinism in the days when 
the intellectual acuteness of that intellectual com- 
munity was concentrated on theological science, and 
everlasting salvation was held almost to hinge on 
the framing of a sentence. 

Dr. Hopkins taught that the love of self should be 
so subjected that one ought to be willing to be lost, 



Family Influences. 1 3 

— were that for God's glory and the general good, — 
and many earnest souls, through untold spiritual an- 
guish, strained after that superhuman height of holi- 
ness. Mehetible Simpkins was one of these, and was 
famed among the clergy of her day no less for her 
piety than for her theological learning. 

" Many were the hours," says one of her descend- 
ants, " she spent with those stanch old divines, 
Eckley, Emmons and Dr. Samuel Hopkins, talking 
over the slow and gradual spread of Unitarianism. 
When the church in which her husband was deacon 
went over to that communion, he did not see differ- 
ence enough to induce him to change ; but she went 
alone and joined the Old South, the church of her an- 
cestors. More and more the ministers used to come 
to seek her counsel. She was regarded as a superior 
woman, a mother in Israel, a helper in every good 
work, feeling that every one ought to know and do 
the right thing." 

Their house was the home of the clergy of the 
region, in their visits to Boston. They felt it a sort 
of sin and disgrace to allow a minister to go to a 
public house. The children found a certain relief 
from the oppressive awe that surrounded these godly 
men, in occasional incidents, as when the Rev. 
Mr. Buckminster was entertained at one time. He 
retired, full of the theological discussions that had 



14 Family Influences, 

been going on. In the night, disturbed by the un- 
usual noises of the city street, he sprang up and 
attacked the looking-glass, imagining himself fight- 
ing with enemies. The crash of the broken glass 
wakened him and the family simultaneously, with 
some consternation. 

Her household management did justice to the lofty 
conceptions of unselfishness which marked her theo- 
ries. She was a widow with two children, Samuel 
and John Torrey, and with step-children when she 
married John Simpkins, a widower with children, and 
two or three children were born to them. In such a 
kingdom, with such provinces, she so ruled as to be 
remembered by every child with love and gratitude. 
The nobleness of duty overrode the tyranny of feel- 
ing. With her own personal property she set up 
one step-son in business. Another son, John, was 
apprenticed, according to the custom of the times, 
to a merchant Avho was to furnish board and clothing- 
while the process of training was going on. Finding 
a sharp contrast between the old home and the new, 
John came to her one day desperate and determined. 
"He could not and would not stay! He could not 
bear it, no one could ! " She was quiet till all was 
said, then calmly began, "John, do you have enough 
to eat?" "Why yes." "Do you have clothes 
enough to keep you warm?" "Yes, of course." 



Family Influences. 1 5 

"Have you a bed to lie on at night?" " Yes." 
" Then go back and fulfil your part. You have 
nothing to complain of." 

Fortunately there was enough of the same sturdy 
fibre in the boy to respond to the somewhat heroic 
treatment ; he went back, and lived to tell the story 
in days of wealth and success. A gray-haired grand- 
child ruefully recalls an instance of similar manage- 
ment. He was visiting her when a little boy, and 
had been promised as a great treat that he should 
go with her to the Old South on Sunday afternoon. 
He went out to play a little in the garden beforehand, 
and when he came in found, to his bitter disappoint- 
ment, that she had gone. She explained, on return- 
ing, that if he did not care enough about going to 
attend to the bell and come in when it rang, she did 
not think it worth while to call him. She was a very 
typical New England dame of the days of strong 
nerves, few words, and excellent sense. She was not 
quite so tender as true ; but the world perhaps was 
not so universal a hospital then as now, and the ex- 
hortation as to the lame and those that are out of 
the way, "letting them rather be healed" than am- 
putated, might not have been so essential. 

In the month of May, 1802, a party of clergymen 
and others were dining at the house. The conversa- 
tion turned on the wants of the world and the dark- 



1 6 Family Influences. 

ness of the heathen. Just as one good man set down 
his empty wine-glass with a sigh over the sad state 
of things, Mrs. Simpkins said, with sudden courage, 
" Gentlemen, I have often thought if every one of 
you would, for every glass of wine you drink, give 
one cent toward sending Bibles to the destitute, a 
great work might be done." She spoke with a smile, 
but the words were born of long-smothered ponder- 
ing and prayer. 

" Well, well, here is my penny," said her hus- 
band, laying it on the table, and the others followed 
in a gallant little way, to humor a woman's playful 
word. 

The subject turned and the dinner went on. As 
they rose from the table, each put the cent back into 
his pocket, as the jest was over. Just as John Simp- 
kins took up his, the wife quietly laid her hand over 
it, saying, " No, my dear, you have given this to the 
Lord. Do not take it." He laughed, wondering at 
her whim, not knowing or caring what was beneath 
the words. 

But when the moment for action, long desired, had 
come, she went to her room and drew up a consti- 
tution for a Cent Society, which stirs us yet by its 
suppressed fervor and direct appeal. 

The original paper remains, and reads as fol- 
lows : — 



Family Influences, 1 7 

" To the Friends of Religion. 
"A single cent, where millions are needed to carry 
into effect the benevolent designs of our Fathers and 
Brethren, who are engaged in sending the Gospel to 
lands unenlightened with its genial rays, may appear 
at first view small and inconsiderable; but should 
the Friends of Zion adopt the plan of only one cent 
a week and recommend the same practice to their 
friends and connections, it is supposed a respectable 
sum, without inconvenience to individuals, may be 
collected to be applied to the purchase of Primers, 
Dr. Watts' Psalms and Hymns, Catechisms, Divine 
Songs for Children, and Bibles. Mrs. John Simp- 
kins requests those who are disposed to encourage 
this work that they would send in their names with 
their money (quarterly, or as shall be most agree- 
able to them), and she will engage to deposit the 
same with the treasurer of the Massachusetts Mis- 
sionary Society, for the important purpose of aiding 
that very laudable institution. 

" Boston, 26 May, 1802." 

Names of subscribers and places of abode follow, — 
twenty-three names, and all of Boston, — and the first 
woman's missionary society in New England, prob- 
ably the first in this country, was formed. 



1 8 Family Influences. 

With this constitution there is a receipt, dated 
May 30, 181 1, acknowledging " eight hundred dollars 
and one cent from Mrs. Mehetible Simpkins," and 
signed by " D. Hopkins and Samuel Spring, Com- 
mittee." 

There is, besides, a little book, belonging evidently 
a year or two later, with a longer additional address, 
stating that since the organization of the society it 
had received about eighteen hundred dollars. It is 
headed : " Despise not the day of small things," 
and closes as follows : " By these inconsiderable 
means many Bibles and other pious books have 
been put into the hands of the poor and destitute, 
and it is hoped we may still be encouraged by the 
prospect of great good in future, which by these 
small appropriations may arise, for those who sit in 
darkness to be brought into God's marvellous light. 
Christ noticed the widow s mite" 

The little grandchild, Elizabeth Butler, born in 
Northampton in 1809, inherited in a marked degree 
many of Mrs. Simpkins's characteristic traits. She 
had the same reality of nature, moral earnestness 
and persistency of purpose, with a certain soundness 
of judgment and strong conscientiousness. 

Nothing is left of the old home on Pleasant Street 
now, but the great elms and the horse-chestnuts 
which Mrs. Butler planted the first season after she 



Family Influences, 1 9 

came a bride from Boston to Northampton. The 
deep garden that stretched back from the house, 
where there were such races with Hector the dog, 
and flowers that blossomed from the time of snow- 
drops till frost, is covered with railway tracks and 
buildings. The house itself was torn down last year, 
so that now there is just the vacant green space 
under the shadow of the trees. Riding by in a 
lovely May afternoon, it seemed as if the house with 
all its memories had been buried under that shade 
" in sure and certain hope." 

" How you children would have loved your grand- 
father!" was one of mother's common exclama- 
tions, especially when some merry mood was on us. 
He is remembered as tall and very stout, yet with 
the lightest step in the house, with twinkling blue 
eyes, the sunniest, kindliest temper, altogether the 
dearest, merriest old gentleman who was ever hugged 
and kissed and scrambled over by half a dozen chil- 
dren at once, the delight of his own little girls and 
boys and of all the small people of the neighborhood. 

The hearty good-humor and love of diffusing joy 
and physical comfort, the social, genial traits in the 
household, were inherited from him. The Simpkins 
home with all its excellences had been a little 
austere, and Mrs. Butler with her numerous good 
qualities had brought with her a slight tendency to 



20 Family Influences. 

gloom. The lack of entire cheerfulness and content- 
ment which is remembered was partly due, besides, 
to habitual ill-health. Always delicate and liable 
to frequent illnesses, with the most exacting ideal of 
housekeeping and needlework, it is not strange that 
with the care of three children at first, and subse- 
quently of her own seven who grew up around her, 
her spirits should not have been always buoyant. 
There was, besides, a deeper reason. While she was 
still quite young, her sister Sallie, one to whom she 
was very tenderly attached, married Captain Bur- 
roughs. Sallie was always frail, and soon faded away. 
Some time after her death the affection which had 
existed between Elizabeth and Captain Burroughs 
deepened into love. He had sailed away and come 
safely home from many voyages. There was now to 
be one more to make his fortune sure, and on his 
return from this voyage they were to be married. 
His parting gift to her, just before sailing, is still pre- 
served ; a pair of bracelet-clasps on which is painted 
a maiden leaning in a pensive attitude against the 
trysting-tree, holding in her hand a wreath. Over 
her head is the motto " Present or absent, ever dear." 
With the paint was mixed a lock of the sister's hair 
dissolved in an acid. 

When he had been some time gone, Elizabeth one 
night dreamed that she was standing on the shore, 



Family Influences. 2 1 

looking out to sea, and saw his vessel. While she 
was still watching it, a cloud suddenly fell and shut 
it out from her sight. She woke with the saddest 
impression that she should see him no more. After 
a time a returning merchantman brought the news 
that confirmed the forewarning. They had spoken 
Captain Burroughs's ship just at nightfall. His vessel 
was disabled from a storm, and they urged him to 
leave it and come on board. He refused steadily, 
saying he could not leave the cargo intrusted to 
him, while one chance remained of saving it. In 
the morning his ship had disappeared. That sorrow, 
though it was out of sight, tinged all her after-life. 

It was the common way of complimenting the 
mother, to jest with the daughters and tell them 
they would never be as handsome as she. Her 
figure was tall and graceful, and her features regular, 
with large dark eyes and an expression of refine- 
ment. Her cheeks, when she lay in her coffin, still 
retained a trace of the clear red which never left 
them. Her children were instructed in household 
arts with conscientious exactness. The sampler went 
with the catechism, for whatever the chief end of 
man was found to be, the chief end of woman was 
to " take two and leave two " as to threads in stitch- 
ing, to cut out garments with economy, and " beat 
separately " the whites and yolks of innumerable eggs 



22 Family Influences. 

for the cakes which were the culmination of good 
housewifery. The two housemaids were kept suffi- 
ciently employed without being intrusted with the 
finer mysteries of cooking; and Elizabeth was hardly 
more than a little girl when she began to be chief 
assistant, the one to wait upon her mother when the 
great concoctions were proceeding, the faithful little 
nurse in sickness. That she was willing to be relied on 
was reason enough, as things were, why she should 
take responsibility very early. Circumstances all 
combined to develop her strong moral traits, and 
duty, not enjoyment, was becoming the law of her life. 
Of the three half brothers and sisters, Abby was 
the one to whom she was most attached. How often 
did she say, looking back to her childhood, " Your 
Aunt Abby was not so pretty as her sister Anne, 
but she had a strong character. If she had lived, I 
should have been very different. She was the only 
one who really understood me. She took great 
pains with me, talked with me about my faults, 
showed me how to correct them, and used often to 
say, ' Eliza, you have the material for a fine char- 
acter if you can only conquer yourself.' I 'loved her 
dearly, and when she talked with me about my irri- 
tability and fondness for having my own way, and 
explained how to guard against temptation, I felt 
drawn to her all the more. I knew she loved me, 



Family Influences. 23 

and I clung to her with all my heart." Abby's fatal 
illness was lingering and long, but the little sister 
Elizabeth was untiring in her devotion to her. Many 
years after some one asked her, " How did you ac- 
quire your wonderful skill in nursing?" "I began 
early," she said, and described her experience in 
Abby's illness. " I loved her, and wanted so to stay 
with her and to be of use to her, I tried my very best to 
learn to wait upon her in the right way, and it ended 
in my being permitted to remain in the sick-room 
almost constantly." 

When Abby died, it was a deep, permanent grief. 
The child heart ached long from loss and the pe- 
culiar loneliness that falls when one goes who holds 
a key to our inner life. No after-friendship effaced 
Abby's memory. Fifty years later she could not 
speak of her without a wistful, far-off look in her 
eyes and a shadow on her lips. A lock of auburn 
hair was found carefully preserved in her desk, 
marked " Sister Abby," side by side with letters 
from the half-brother Charles, — old yellow letters, 
folded square and directed to " Daniel Butler, Mer- 
chant." Charles had a passion for the sea in his 
boyhood, which his father opposed at first. Finally, 
by the advice of friends, he sent him on a voyage 
before the mast, with a captain whom he knew. It 
was an effectual cure. He left home when the little 



24 Family Influences. 

girls were very young, and while on a business trip, 
died suddenly of yellow-fever, at Bayou St. Louis, 
September 15, 1820. There was always a romance in 
mother's mind connected with the bits of pretty 
glass and china Charles had brought home from that 
one voyage. They seemed inwrought with her first 
dim, childish impressions of foreign lands, with the 
strangeness of his sudden death and burial in the far- 
away South. 

Among other notable ways brought by Eliza's 
mother from the good town of Boston, was that of 
having all little girls taught how to make an entire 
shirt before they were seven years old. This the 
oldest daughter duly proceeded to accomplish, setting 
so many careful, faithful stitches in the linen, and feel- 
ing well rewarded for all her toil by her father's kiss, 
when it was presented to him. Just as conscien- 
tiously she learned all varieties of embroidery on 
linen and canvas and lace, all sorts of hemstitching 
and cross-stitching, cushions and needle-books, which 
were a marvel of exquisite finish and exact construc- 
tion ; meanwhile she was being initiated more and 
more deeply into the art of elaborate cookery, the 
adaptations of sauces and gravies, the exact propor- 
tions of brandy and wine in plum-puddings and 
mince-pies, the construction of perfect salads and 
soups, and feathery tarts and jellies of which it 



Family Influences, 25 

does not behoove a dyspeptic generation even to 
dream. 

Those were the days when the decrees of God 
were held, responsible for gastric fevers, and the 
demijohn of " elixir pro." was the end of all strife. 

The physician's word was as positive law in the 
physical realm as the minister's in the spiritual, and 
what physician in New England in our grandmother's 
days ever suggested prevention rather than cure? 
So the generous table was spread day after day, 
with every thing that skill could devise ; and the 
fame of Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners spread 
far and wide among the cousins and connections, to 
whom the hearty hospitality of the house made even 
the memory of the Pleasant Street home bright. 
The best varieties of apples and pears, cider from the 
farmer on the Pelham hills, who knew how to make 
it exactly right, wine on the sideboard for callers, — 
all had a certain importance as essential to physical 
comfort. A Grahamite in cooking would have been 
looked upon in their circle with as ill-concealed dis- 
gust as a tory in politics or a liberal in theology. 

Stanch whigs on both sides, strict Calvinists on 
the mother's, girls and boys talked politics in the 
week-time with as much zeal as if the daughters ex- 
pected to vote with the sons ; and on Sundays settled 
down to the catechism and Parson Williams's long 



26 Family Influences, 

sermons, filling the square pew and getting a certain 
discipline of endurance, till he came to the point 
they were watching for, — "Let us now pass to the 
application." 

Not even when the damask roses were in bloom, 
and orioles singing in the elm-trees, was a walk down 
the garden allowed on that one long day of the week ; 
yet in such a merry, affectionate household there 
were a thousand reliefs, and whatever else was missed 
they were sure to feel, at least on Sunday, that re- 
ligion, as she understood it, was in the mother's mind 
the one essential thing. 

Eliza grew up very pretty. Her complexion was a 
marvellous pink and white, her figure slender and 
round, clear gray eyes, and curling dark hair. " We 
used to think," says a sister, " that Eliza would be a 
perfect beauty, except for her mouth, for the teeth 
were a little irregular." 

She was so absolutely free from vanity or self- 
consciousness as often to neglect the common girlish 
arts for making one's self attractive. She hardly 
knew or cared what ribbon became her, or how she 
looked on any occasion. But suddenly one day her 
mother awoke to the fact of her beauty, and the effect 
on her white forehead of a particularly lovely curl 
that formed itself naturally on the right side. Eliza 
was solemnly summoned, and the curl cut off, " for 



Family Influences, 27 

fear it would make her vain ! " — a touch of asceticism 
whose absurdity nothing could hinder her strong 
common-sense from condemning then and always. 
The lock never grew long, but lay always in little 
crinkles and waves very unconquerable, very trouble- 
some in the wind, and very dear to those who loved 
her face. In her matronhood, she said, with that 
simplicity which never forsook her, " It had never 
entered my mind that I was pretty, but the short 
lock has given me a great deal of trouble. I never 
saw the necessity for cutting it off." 

Nearly every spring, though she was not thought 
delicate, she drooped and sank into slow fever, and 
remembered always her feeling of lassitude and the 
weariness of gradual creeping back to her old condi- 
tion. But even then that spirit of " making the best 
of things " was strong within her, and she yielded to 
inaction only so long as she must. As soon as possi- 
ble she was again at her work-basket, always so care- 
fully supplied with thread and needles and all other 
appliances, the resort of younger sisters in all cases 
of need, to the great trial of her patience ; or she was 
running in the garden with Hector, the big dog whom 
they all loved so much, or looking after the flowers 
which her mother took vast pains to have blooming 
all through the season. When Lafayette made his 
tour of New England, in 1825, she was one of the 



28 Family Influences. 

company of young girls who went out, dressed in 
white, to scatter flowers in his way. Her love of 
flowers and all external nature was evident very 
early. Mt. Holyoke and Mt. Tom were personal 
friends. That beautiful valley is dear to every one 
who grows up in it, and nowhere lovelier than at that 
river-bend which holds Northampton. Song and 
story have since celebrated the charm of the old 
town and the exquisite landscape, the view of the 
meadows from the mountain, and the view of the 
mountains from Round Hill, the great old tree 
where Jonathan Edwards sat to write his sermons, 
the glory of the elms in summer and the maples in 
autumn, and the attraction of its refined society. It 
all grew into the very soul of the children who played 
under those trees, hunted wild-flowers in the meadows, 
and picked arbutus every spring on the hills, had May 
parties and crowned May queens, in the days when 
the war of 1812 was the last event, before letters 
were put in envelopes, when Monroe was president, 
steamships and railways and the telegraph unknown, 
and the semi-weekly Boston stage-coach the closest 
connection Northampton had with the great outside 
world. 



CHAPTER II. 
YOUTH AND MARRIAGE. 



II. 

YOUTH AND MARRIAGE. 

" So from the heights of Will 
Life's parting stream descends, 
Ajidy as a moment turns its slender rill, 
Each widening torrent bendsP 

Holmes. 

" These are they that follow the Lamb whither- 
soe ver he goeth . ' ' 

St. John. 

"PORTUNATELY for my mother and those who 
were to come after, the graded-school system 
did not exist in her childhood. 

There was no iron six-hours regime, with examina- 
tions for promotion and the fever of hurry and com- 
petition, to burn out the life of young girls, while 
individuality is buried under routine. Unfortunately 
nothing better was in its place. 

The daughter who had been trained in needle-work 
and domestic management, taught the spelling and 
grammar of her native tongue, geography, history, 
and arithmetic, might or might not push on toward sci- 
ence and the knowledge of other languages. If she had 



32 Youth and Marriage. 

a strong intellectual bent and was favorably situated, 
she could sometimes snatch what hung a little too 
high for her. Ordinarily, with the prevailing opinion 
that the ideal woman might be ignorant, though she 
must be good, and owed a limitless duty to every thing 
and every person about her, excepting to her own intel- 
lect, girls accepted the situation, smothered their won- 
der why there were not colleges for them as well as for 
boys, and stitched into the wristbands and collars of 
the brothers who were starting for Yale or Harvard, 
their silent puzzle and longing. Smith College is 
one of the first objects of interest to the stranger who 
visits Northampton now; but it was fifty years too 
late for the young girl who in 1825 had finished re- 
citing history, drawing maps, copying extracts from 
Percival, and running through the paradigms of the 
first Latin Lessons. 1 

• There was no one to observe in her well-formed 
head, her uncommon perseverance in noticing and in- 
vestigating natural processes and classifying natural 
objects, in her indifference to trifles and enthusiasm 
for worthy ends, her soundness of judgment and 
strength of purpose, indications of a mind that would 
repay special training. 

It was left for those who saw her collecting mosses 
and shells when she was past sixty, valuing them not 
wholly for their beauty, but delighting in the ugliest 



Youth and Marriage. 33 

brown bit if it were a specimen of a class, to detect in 
her the genuine scientific spirit, and to say as many did, 
" What might she not have done in a special depart- 
ment if she had been educated for it ! " 

" I was generally considered a good scholar," she 
wrote once to a friend, " and was so, according to the 
system of instruction at that time. I learned easily 
and loved to learn, but was not required to under- 
stand. There was no one to superintend my studies, 
and though I wanted to go beyond the common 
English branches, my father thought it unnecessary. 
When I left school I was supposed to have a very 
good education." Years afterward, when she was 
twenty-two, she began a course of study with Miss 
Margaret Dwight, taking Euclid, mental philosophy, 
and some other branches, writing careful abstracts. 
It was valuable to her, though interrupted before it was 
completed. She painted a little and well, flowers 
and fruit, — sweet-brier, white lilies, and a little red 
apple on a blue plate, still remaining as specimens of 
her skill. 

In her correspondence with her cousin, Anne 
Payson, there is allusion to the books in which they 
both were interested, Anne asking her if she has 
read " Saratoga," and whether the hero does not 
remind her of Sir Charles Grandison. 

Dancing and dancing-parties the small Eliza en- 
3 



34 Youth ci7id Marriage, 

joyed heartily. In a letter written by her brother 
John, just after returning to Yale from vacation, he 
asks her " how the agricultural ball passed off," and 
says " he is glad she did not go," as he does not 
quite approve of so much gayety for so very young 
girls, " grandchildren dancing with their venerable 
ancestors." 

She was then thirteen. It could not have been 
long after, that she made the visit to her Aunt Welles 
in Hartford. Mrs. Welles was a sister of her father, 
living on what was so long known as the Welles 
place, on Washington Street, and was quite blind. 
That visit she always recalled with great interest. 
My mother liked to describe the marvellous patience 
of her aunt, her moving about the house without 
help, her way of saying, if a thing was lost, " I will 
find it;" her going to closets and bureau drawers 
and producing articles which others who could see 
had vainly searched for; and the instinct which 
guided her, on entering a room, directly to the guest 
she wished to welcome, without hesitation or awk- 
wardness. 

The little niece sprang one evening to get a lamp 
for her aunt who was going upstairs, and never forgot 
the tone in which she answered, " My dear, the dark- 
ness and the light are alike to me." 

Mrs. Welles regretted, in her hearing one day, that 



Youth and Marriage. 35 

no one in the different families had her name. So 
easy a way of giving happiness did not escape the 
notice of the child. She insisted that she would take 
it, and did so, ever after signing her name with the W. 
The Elizabeth of her christening had some time before 
passed into Eliza, to avoid confusion with a cousin, 
Elizabeth Butler, living on the same street. 

After John had gone to college, the next event 
that stirred the current of the family life was Eliza's 
winter in Boston. She was invited by Mrs. Rollins, 
a cousin, and set out with much of the same excited 
anticipation with which a young Boston girl would 
start for Paris now. The blue silk pelisse in which 
she was arrayed is in existence still, with its belt 
too short for any but the very slenderest waists that 
have tried it, in tableaux, since, and wide balloon-like 
sleeves, — " mutton-legs," as they were called. 

The faithful little thimble was packed away, there 
was the last hug of Hector the dog, tears and kisses 
all round the little group of which she was just then 
the centre ; and the gray-eyed girl, with pinker roses 
in her cheeks than ever, set out in the stage-coach 
for the long journey, and her first glimpse of the 
great world. That winter was an episode ever kept 
quite by itsejf in her memory. To trace just the 
effect of all the new experience, and to picture the 
artless, strong, direct nature in its first contact with 



2)6 Yotith and Marriage. 

society as she was introduced to it on Beacon Street, 
would need a master's skill. One can see it better 
than say it. The theatre disappointed her ; she was 
taken to witness different plays, but she said it all 
seemed unreal. Reason overbalanced imagination 
in her mind, and the " make believe " did not seem 
to her worth while. Parties and balls had a zest. 
The white satin bodice and scant India muslin, with 
which she wore pomegranates and cherry ribbons, 
were found years after, in the days when she had 
come to look back on all that as a sin, and made the 
occasion of half-reluctant descriptions of other lovely 
costumes in which she danced away the night. It 
was her delight, though she was strangely uncon- 
scious of the charming picture she must have made, 
with her fair face and waving hair, the exquisitely 
turned arms, tapering to the slender wrist, and the 
perfectly moulded hand, covered, but not concealed, 
by the long kid gloves it was the fashion to wear, 
nearly to the elbow. The only point of personal 
beauty in which she ever confessed any satisfaction, 
was a certain turn of foot and ankle, tapering and 
with very high instep, which pleased her because it 
was like her father's. 

Her letters describing what she saw, and her new 
sensations that season, her seventeenth winter, are 
not to be found ; but those from home were care- 



Youth and Marriage. 37 

fully folded away in her desk. They give glimpses 
of a cheery, affectionate family life : the sister tells of 
all the calls and visits; Daniel describes how early 
Nancy, the maid, woke him the 1st of January, by 
her "Happy New Year!" at his door; and John 
caresses and teases all in one breath. That she was 
dearly loved and sorely missed is very plain. There 
are sly allusions to her as " a young lady of fashion," 
and hints of increasing sensitiveness to matters of 
dress, in Maria's remark, " If you do not like the 
shape of the cap mother made you, send it back; " 
and was it then or earlier she experienced misery in 
having square-toed shoes bought for her when round 
toes were in fashion? 

One cannot repress a heartache, though her own 
pangs were so long ago over, at the sudden breaking- 
ofT of that joyful, free winter. All was still at high 
tide, the dance with the officers at the Navy Yard ball, 
concerts here and calls there, and long-anticipated 
visits to cousins in Charlestown and elsewhere still in 
prospect, when Sister Anne's letters begin to grow 
mysterious. Hitherto they had been full of elaborate 
advice on behavior and obligations, — " Do not let 
the reputation of Northampton ladies, for good man- 
ners, suffer at your hands." " Appear properly on 
all occasions, and keep us advised of your move- 
ments." But now, after various inexplicable hints 



38 Youth and Marriage. 

from Anne and mystifications on the part of the big 
brothers, it comes out that Anne has promised to 
marry Mr. B., a gentleman from the South, with five 
children, and directly it is suggested that Eliza has 
been gone from home some time. She clings to the 
carrying out of her bright plans ; but the suggestions 
become more definite, and at last comes the letter 
which says, " We must have your assistance in prep- 
arations for the approaching wedding. You know 
you are a dabster at work, and we want your help." 
The postscript signed " Your afT. father, D. Butler," 
announced " that her passage is engaged in Thurs- 
day's stage, and they shall expect her." So the 
trunk was packed, rather soberly, we must think. 
No more flutter under the little satin bodice; but 
before the journey is over, loving thoughts of home 
have partly covered the disappointment, and the 
thimble comes out again, the gay pictures begin 
to retire to the background, after all the stories have 
been told and the pretty things exhibited, and while 
she thinks she is only helping, as a sister should, 
to make Anne's wedding-dresses, the currents have 
changed, bearing her quite away from one shore and 
towards the opposite. While they sat sewing, the 
fates were weaving one more strong thread into the 
character of the young girl, and drawing her closer to 
the company of the elect, who are " not to be min- 
istered unto, but to minister." 



Youth and Marriage. 39 

There is a strange sensation in taking up the 
package of faded letters, tied with white ribbon, the 
first of which has the news of Anne's engagement. 
In the next there is the stir of preparation, the descrip- 
tion of the house that is to be built, — and there it 
stands still, white and stately on Round Hill; then 
after the wedding, the journals of the trip undertaken 
within the year for Anne's failing health ; the account 
of her cough, which is "a little better," — those coughs 
that are always " a little better." More serious letters 
follow, in which Anne pours out the soul experiences 
of the past years, which in health she had found it 
impossible to utter to them. She tells them through 
what doubts and conflicts she came to faith and joy- 
ful trust in Christ; then no more from Anne, but the 
rest in her husband's handwriting, saying, " She fails 
but is wonderfully supported, that her peace is some- 
thing marvellous, that death has no terror, and heaven 
a home of rapture to her thought," and soon that all 
is over and "our precious Anne is no more." In the 
next enclosure are the green leaves from her grave in 
Petersburg, Va. 

During that year Eliza had much care of the little 
children who were left behind in the home on the 
Hill, while the invalid mother was travelling. She 
was at the house every day, and dearly loved Lucy, 
the youngest little girl, with her sweet ways and 



40 Youth and Marriage, 

pretty " Din Aunt Izy," when she was tossed up and 
caught. The child fell suddenly ill, and died before 
the father's return. It was a sharp pain to the tender 
heart that loved so deeply and so long when it loved 
at all. To the last of her life her eyes grew dim 
whenever she spoke of the child. 

" I never could understand," says a cousin, who 
was very intimate in their home, " why Eliza should 
say, as she sometimes did to me, that her tempera- 
ment was not cheerful, that she inclined to sombre 
thoughts, and had a good deal of sadness that she 
could not shake off. It must be simply another ex- 
ample of those who do not understand themselves, 
for a merrier, sunnier creature never lived. She 
was all heartiness, the embodiment of hope and 
kindness." 

But she knew the deep unrest that no one under- 
stood and nothing quieted ; and the good angels 
knew, as they watched her bending over her em- 
broidery or waking weary after the night's ball, that 
the forces that moulded her were culminating. A 
better Friend than she knew was nearer than she 
thought. 

October 20, 1826, her sister Anne writes to her, 
" Oh, my dear sister, the steppings of Jehovah have 
indeed been stately among us, and his name be for 
ever praised that he has graciously condescended to 



Youth and Marriage. 41 

visit us with the blessings of his grace. The lan- 
guage of your letter did appear strange, as coming 
from the gay and thoughtless sister that I parted 
from a few weeks before. I had sensibly realized 
the dreadful brink on which you stood, and had 
prayed earnestly that you might be arrested in your 
course ere it was too late. Let me tell you, my dear 
Eliza, I was grieved to see you so obstinately deter- 
mined not to interest yourself in the solemn concerns 
of eternity. Your conduct was very frivolous, and I 
looked upon you as standing upon dangerous ground. 
I am sure mother was in bitterness for you. She 
told me how Martha B., Elizabeth S., your favorite 
companion, and yourself were opposing the work of 
the Lord. You will now regret that you did not en- 
courage, instead of using every effort to dissipate the 
seriousness of little N. and M. in the early part of 
the summer. Be careful now in every thing to set 
them a good example. Be careful to guard your 
temper, to watch over your thoughts, and pray 
that you may be kept from the allurements of the 
world. You are very young, and dangers will beset 
you on every side, but put your trust in your Maker 
and persevere. Realize that you are continually in 
his presence. Seek at all times light and protection 
from him, and he will be ready to hear you." 

In September, 1828, Dr. Ichabod Spencer became 



42 Youth and Marriage. 

pastor of the church in Northampton, and had a 
peculiarly strong influence in forming my mother's 
religious opinions and stimulating her spiritual life. In 
her diary, under date of October 4, 1829, is this entry : 
" I have completed the circuit of my twentieth year. 
It becomes me at this time to review my life, to as- 
certain if I have lived like an heir of immortality. I 
do most earnestly desire to come out from the world 
and join myself to the church of Christ, to become a 
devoted Christian, and never to be a reproach or dis- 
grace to the religion of Christ." 

" February 21 1 1830. — I have not till now had an 
opportunity of recording the fulfilment of the promise 
I made on my birthday. I then promised soon to 
profess my faith in Christ and give myself up en- 
tirely to his service. On the first Sabbath of this 
month I came forward and joined myself to the 
people of God. I trust I was enabled to give up 
every feeling and affection of my heart to be gov- 
erned by his will. He answered my prayer, even 
beyond my expectation, in delivering me from the 
fear of man, and in strengthening me for the per- 
formance of this duty. He granted me the light of 
his countenance and the joys of his salvation. I 
came in simple reliance on my Saviour, and experi- 
enced no rapturous joy, but a calm, unclouded hope 
that I was accepted with God, and the fulfilment of 



Youth and Marriage. 43 

that promise, ' Peace I leave with you, my peace I 
give unto you.' O my Saviour, I have given my- 
self up entirely to thy service. Grant unto me 
patience to wait all my appointed time till my 
change come, and while I remain on earth let me 
be doing something for thy glory. I would not live 
a useless life. Thou knowest my weakness, but thou 
canst be touched with the feeling of my infirmities ; 
thou hast been tempted even as I am, and I delight 
to cast myself on Thee." 

"May 2, 1830. — I cannot better spend the after- 
noon of this holy day than in reviewing my Christian 
experience. How difficult the task ! Guide me, O 
thou Spirit oi grace, that I err not and record noth- 
ing inconsistent with truth. From my earliest youth 
I was subject to serious impressions; when a child, 
I frequently resolved to be a Christian; my soul 
would tremble at the wrath of God, and melt into 
contrition under a sense of his mercy ; then I would 
endeavor to pacify my conscience by a formula of 
duties, and when the heartless manner in which they 
were performed failed to satisfy, I would dismiss the 
heavenly messenger with, ' Go thy way for this time ; 
when I have a convenient season I will call for thee ; ' 
but these seasons seldom returned after the age of 
thirteen, though the remembrance of them would 
sometimes imbitter my gayest hours, and spread a 



44 Youth and Marriage. 

gloom over my spirits, even in the enjoyment of 
what my wicked heart most coveted, and when revel- 
ling amidst the luxuriance and beauty of nature, the 
monitory voice has come like a blight over my spirit, 
and my accusing conscience would whisper, ' Shall 
all nature utter the praises of its Creator, and shall 
man, the only creature of his hand capable of rendering 
him rational worship, — shall he withhold the tribute 
of his praise?' Thoughts like these would some- 
times disturb my peace, but they were quickly for- 
gotten, and my soul plunged into the pleasures of sin. 
In the spring of 1826, I returned home from Boston, 
with a heart more than ever devoted to the world and 
more fully determined not to yield to the claims of 
the gospel. Indeed, I was hardened in indifference 
and ' cared for none of these things.' But God had 
begun to pour out his Spirit upon the town, and my 
attention was again drawn to the subject; but as my 
conscience became alarmed, so also did my sin, and 
I determined that I would not become a Christian 
then. I was resolved to become a Christian before 
I died, but it should be in my own time and my own 
way, and my pride especially revolted at becoming 
pious in a revival. With these determinations, I 
went on. I was watched. I avoided the society of 
Christians, and tried to escape from my conscience. 
I remained in this state till the first of September, 



Youth and Marriage, 45 

when one day Mr. S. called and conversed with me a 
long time on the subject. I was quite angry at the 
time, for I had formed my resolution and did not 
wish to be disturbed. Of course what he said failed 
to impress me, but after having obtained my permis- 
sion to pray with me, he rose to leave, when, taking 
my hand, he said solemnly, but affectionately, ' I have 
done for you all that I can do, and by your own con- 
sent you have been committed into the hands of 
God, and remember you are dealing with him.' 
This thought fell like a thunderbolt upon my soul. 
I had been flattering myself that I was not opposed 
to God, but only to the extravagance of Christians ; 
but now I felt that I was in the hands of God, and I 
was alarmed. I felt that I was deciding for eternity. 
I deliberately counted the cost of being a Christian. 
All those obstacles which appeared so mountainous 
before, now vanished into air ; but there was nothing 
I feared more than the ridicule of those associates 
with whom I had joined in pouring contempt upon 
others. This vanished before the light of the Judg- 
ment. I felt that there they could do me no good, they 
could not even save themselves. I determined not 
to hesitate any longer, but immediately gave myself 
up to God; then my fears were quieted, and my 
mind, which had recently been full of anguish, was 
now calm and peaceful. 



46 Youth and Marriage. 

" I was so ignorant of spiritual things it was a long 
time before I could believe that one so vile as I had 
been, could be a Christian. I could not think I was 
the enemy of God, but I was afraid to call myself his 
friend. I dared not apply his promises to myself, 
yet when the thought of death came over me, I would 
cling to the feet of my Saviour, resolved if I perished 
to perish there. A death-like apathy settled upon 
my soul, yet in all my darkness I never dared to 
murmur against God. I knew the difficulty was all in 
myself. Often have I risen from my secret devotions 
feeling that my prayers were so cold and heartless 
that they were little better than blasphemy. The 
tempter would suggest it was more sinful for me to 
pray than to neglect the duty, but conscience told 
me that I stood more in need of prayer then than 
ever, and, thanks be to God, I was never induced to 
relinquish it, or any other form of religion, so that I 
hope I have not brought any positive disgrace upon 
religion. Through it all I continually offered one sin- 
cere prayer to God that I might not be deceived. 

" In the spring of 1828, God called me to mourn the 
loss of a very dear sister, and I trust this dispensation 
of his providence was not lost upon me. It taught 
me to examine my own heart, to scrutinize carefully 
my feelings and motives during her sickness. I could 
not feel willing that she should live or die just as God 



Youth and Marriage. 47 

saw best; no, I could not give her up; she must re- 
cover and return to us once more. I recognized his 
hand in her death, but I fear the little resignation I 
had, proceeded more from a conviction of the power 
of God than from any true love or submission to 
him. I trust the result of this dispensation was a 
deeper insight into the iniquity of my heart, and the 
determination to become more decidedly a Christian. 
Through the summer I was constantly striving to 
recommend myself to the favor of God by endeavor- 
ing to overcome in my own strength the depravity 
of my heart and to make myself more worthy of his 
love. The result of this course was a complete failure. 
I was wretchedly unhappy, I could find no happiness 
in myself and none in my God; and the world — 
I loathed it: its pleasures were never so insipid, its 
allurements were never so feeble ; and, unhappy as I 
was, I preferred remaining in that state to returning 
to its bondage. 

" In the autumn Mr. Spencer was settled as our 
pastor, and I owe it to his faithful, heart-searching 
preaching, under the blessing of God, that I was ever 
brought to hope that I was a Christian. One sermon 
in particular was much blessed to me; it was on 
faith. He first explained true faith and then painted 
its counterfeit. He said that one characteristic of 
false faith was relying on the ACT of faith for salva- 



48 Youth and Marriage. 

tion instead of the merits of Christ alone. This was 
precisely my situation. I had, as I thought, given 
myself up to God, and I felt I had a right to be saved. 
I had often wondered, and had sometimes felt inclined 
to murmur, that I could not be happy, but never, till 
I heard this sermon, did I incline to suspect that this 
might be my difficulty. When I did discover it, I 
trust I was enabled to renounce all dependence upon 
any thing but the blood of Jesus, and never, till then, 
did I know what it was to rejoice in hope. 

" It was now my ardent desire and firm purpose to 
be a spiritual and devoted Christian. I did not wish 
to be known as a Christian only when I was at the 
communion-table, but I wished to make it manifest 
by my life and conversation that I had been with 
Jesus. 

" I determined to give up every worldly pleasure, 
every sinful amusement, and as far as possible to 
absent myself from every fashionable party, and not 
to have it said of me, ' What does she more than 
others?' but I did not wish to have my religion con- 
sist in this. I wished to live a life of faith on the 
Son of God, to be daily holding communion with 
him and seeking by the influences of the Holy Spirit 
to grow in grace. I wished to be laboring in his ser- 
vice, and thus to be laying up for myself treasure in 
heaven, and to be constantly prepared and looking 



Youth and Marriage. 49 

forward to that day when I could go home and dwell 
for ever with my Redeemer. 

"May 15. — Found two of my dear class in the 
Sabbath School rejoicing in hope. I was over- 
whelmed by the mercy of God, but now experienced 
a reverse of feeling. I found that I was more anxious 
to satisfy the church that I was engaged, than I was 
to be strong in faith and have my heart humble and 
prayerful before God ; and then my old besetting 
sin, pride, would fain persuade me that I was very 
good and that I was very much engaged. Then I 
found that I was becoming cold and formal ; but 
I could not rest in this state. I determined to arise 
and go to my Father, and the thought came sweetly 
to my heart, I could not be more than the chief of 
sinners, and that was the very person Jesus came to 
save. 

" February 6. — Dr. Spencer alluded to the prospect 
of his separation from us. I wept bitter tears of 
sorrow at the thought of losing so good, so affection- 
ate, and so faithful a shepherd. In the afternoon the 
claims of Home Missions were presented; I felt that 
I longed to do something in this work, and that I 
was willing to go where the Lord should send me, 
and do any thing, if I could be instrumental of good 
to the perishing. I have drawn very near to God in 
prayer, and he has enabled me to give up all that I 

4 



50 Youth and Marriage. 

have and am to him. I felt that Jie was my portion, 
my guide, and I needed nothing more. I cheerfully 
gave up my beloved pastor to him as a precious 
gift that he had loaned me for a little, and now in his 
mysterious providence recalled." 

There is carefully kept in her desk a little note 
which runs as follows, " The Miss Butlers are obliged 
to decline the very polite invitation of the man- 
agers of the cotillon party for to-morrow evening," 
February 2, 1 830, and which was evidently preserved as 
marking a decided change in her course of action. 

" Every thing was strict and straightforward with 
her," says her sister Maria. " There was a distinct 
line drawn between the church and the world. It 
must have been in 1832, while she was visiting in 
New York, and had been anxiously expecting a letter 
from home, when a letter was brought to her on Sun- 
day morning, and, knowing that it would be full of 
chit-chat about Mr. B.'s wedding, she locked it in her 
trunk and would not open it until Monday morning." 
Her brother Daniel says : " She was faithful in her 
closet duties long before she united with the church. 
Prayer and the study of God's Word were her life, and 
made her what she was. She not only continued in 
prayer, but became mighty in prayer, and will be 
classed with those who have prevailed with God." 

I quote from her diary under date of January, 1833 : 



Youth and Marriage. 51 

" In the presence of God, with the solemn realities of 
eternity in view, I covenant to devote myself unre- 
servedly to his service, to deny myself, to take up 
the cross and follow Christ. I will remember that I 
am not my own, and will be ready for any work to 
which God shall call me. I beseech thee, dear 
Saviour, if it be thy will, to let me carry the gospel 
to the destitute. Prepare me for it by the discipline 
of thy Spirit, that in humility and godly sincerity I 
may follow thee whithersoever thou goest, and live like 
a pilgrim and stranger on the earth." 

" June 9, 1833. — For the last month my mind has 
been much agitated with the question whether I 
should remove my connection from the old church 
to the new Edwards Church. I have prayed earnestly 
for Divine direction, desirous of following only the 
path of duty independently of every other considera- 
tion, but whether I really possessed this feeling of 
submission, He alone who searches the heart can tell. 
I have decided to take the step. While my mind has 
been thus engaged I find my heart has sadly run to 
waste. At one time I was influenced by a spirit 
of self-complacency, at another by pride, worldly- 
mindedness, and fear of man, and, what was worse, I 
found myself cherishing a spirit of party. These are 
but a few of the wicked feelings I found rankling in 
my bosom. My prayers were not fervent and spir- 



52 Youth and Marriage. 

itual. I indulged in wandering thoughts and vain 
imaginations, and so my soul was paralyzed. But 
God has not left my soul in the power of the Lion. 
I think I can now say I have not an unkind feeling 
toward any member of this church. Met this morn- 
ing an hour before church with the Sunday School 
teachers, to pray for our classes. If I ever feel I am 
nothing without the grace of God, it is when I stand 
before my class. 

" September 29. — Seated at my favorite window 
enjoying the calm repose of this holy evening, I 
would record the dealings of God with my soul. In 
June I was much occupied in assisting to prepare for 
a fair, but I did it as a task. My heart was not as 
deeply interested as I thought it would be. But I 
could not remain long in this state without being 
sensible that I was very different from what a Chris- 
tian ought to be. I found the fear of man had been 
a snare to me, I was too apt to be satisfied with the 
confidence and good opinion of others, and had not 
sought as my single aim the approbation of God. 
In July I was quite ill for a few days, and asked my- 
self if I wished to die, to leave this world and go to 
heaven ; to my shame, I found I was not willing or 
ready. I had been living for myself, and had hardly 
begun to do any thing for the cause of Christ. I 
prayed that I might recover and carry out the plans 



Youth and Marriage, 53 

I had formed. I was reminded of the importance of 
making the conversion of souls a prominent object 
in my prayers. I found that had not been my cus- 
tom, but that my own salvation and that of my 
friends had been my principal object. I resolved 
henceforth to obey the injunction of the Saviour in 
his directions to his church, and offer as my first 
petition, * Thy kingdom come.' I have been sur- 
prised at the result of this course, a deeper interest 
in the prosperity of Zion, more spirituality of feeling, 
a stronger hope of my own safety, and a more inti- 
mate communion with God. Yet this is but the 
natural result of obedience to God. He is faithful 
to his promises, and nothing but our unbelief makes 
us surprised when we experience their fulfilment. I 
little thought at this time for what my Heavenly 
Father was preparing me, for what he had been 
humbling me, then brightening my hope and strength- 
ening my faith ; but soon in his providence he taught 
me. My beloved father was laid on a bed of sick- 
ness, and in three short weeks (September 15, 1833, 
at the age of sixty-five) I followed him to the grave. 
This was a sudden blow, and one that came nearer to 
my heart than any other could have done. It seemed 
at times as if I should be overwhelmed, as if my heart 
could not endure this dreadful stroke ; but my faithful, 
covenant God was with me. He put underneath me 



54 Youth and Marriage. 

his almighty arm, he hid me in the secret of his 
tabernacle, and by his grace he kept me trusting in 
him. All the circumstances of my dear father's ill— 
ness were ordered in mercy, and we have reason to 
hope that he slept in Jesus. This is enough to call 
forth everlasting gratitude. I have long prayed to 
be weaned from the world, and I trust this was in 
answer to my prayer, and that henceforth I shall live 
to the glory of God. I trust that, over the remains 
of my departed parent, I laid hold of the precious 
promises to the fatherless. God's love never before 
seemed to me so precious. I wished to testify of its 
sufficiency to all around. I felt I could endure any 
thing that would thus bring me near to him." 

In a letter dated September 18, 1833, to Rev. 
William Thompson, a friend with whom she was at 
that time corresponding, she says, " On Sunday 
evening my father's fever assumed a serious aspect 
that proved to be the crisis of the disease. From 
that hour he gradually sank until Friday morning, 
when the final struggle began, and just as the last 
rays of the setting sun illumined the western sky, his 
spirit winged its flight to immortality. I feel that 
my father came to Christ with a deep sense of sin, a 
renunciation of his own righteousness, and a desire 
to receive salvation as a free gift through a crucified 
Redeemer. His soul was overwhelmed with the love 



Youth and Marriage. 55 

of Jesus and the promises of God. This work was not 
all deferred to the hour of sickness ; for weeks before, 
his mind was deeply impressed with the subject, and 
he told me he had formed a solemn resolution to live 
to the glory of God. He was actually engaged in 
arranging to transfer the business to my brother, that 
he might have leisure to prepare for another world. 

" On Friday morning he was perfectly conscious, 
though not permitted to revive sufficiently to give us 
his dying blessing. I know we have it, for he evi- 
dently knew us all. His eye turned from one- to 
another, and watched us as we stood around his bed. 
We feared his last agony would be severe, but God 
in mercy spared us this, and led him gently through 
the dark valley. But I will not attempt to describe 
these sad scenes. If you have ever passed through a 
similar affliction you know too well each circum- 
stance : the alternations of hope and fear as day by 
day you stand by the dying pillow; and then, as hope 
is fast receding, to watch the flickering pulse, that was 
wont to beat so warmly with paternal love, and to 
feel the last quiver tremble to your touch; to see 
that mild, bright eye, that ever beamed in fondness 
on his child, fixed and glazed in death, — oh, there 
is an anguish in this that none can know but those 
whose hearts have been thus torn. I am sorry you 
did not know my father when you were here, as you 



56 Youth and Marriage. 

could not have known him without esteeming him, 
and you ought to know his worth rightly to appre- 
ciate our loss. I believe I possessed his entire con- 
fidence, and he regarded me, in common with my 
sisters, rather as a friend than a child." 

The winter of 1832 she spent with her brother John, 
then a practising physician in Worcester, Mass. It 
is of him she says in an early letter, " I have not only 
confided in him as a brother, but have been warmly 
attached to him as a friend." The records in her 
diary of longing for his conversion, and his letters to 
her, extending from her childhood to her marriage, 
all carefully folded in the " red desk," are the reflex 
of an ideal sisterly love, all tenderness, merriment, 
moralizing, confidence, and unselfish devotion to his 
comfort and his higher interests. His baby son, 
Charles, she speaks of at this time as " a fine child, 
and so like my dear father." 

It was some time during this visit that she first met 
the one who was to be " nearest and dearest." The 
family were at a little tea-party at the house of Rev. 
John C. Abbott, and a theological student from An- 
dover, William Thompson, was of the company. 
His first and lasting impression of her face is as she 
stood on the opposite side of the room, leaning to 
look at an engraving, absorbed, calm, and uncon- 
scious of every thing but the picture. 



Youth and Marriage. 57 

She remembered him as one with whom she would 
like to talk again, but had begun to think that would 
never be, when one day, soon after she went home to 
Northampton, he called on her. The next day, they 
climbed Mt. Holyoke together, and were in the midst 
of a happy comparison of thoughts and purposes, 
when, wishing to be free to touch bush or branch in 
the wood path, and not liking to spoil the new gloves 
she had on, she, like a prudent maiden, drew them off, 
never thinking of the white hand, so beautiful it could 
not but attract attention. Not knowing that guileless 
soul, he was slightly repelled by what struck him as 
a possible trick of feminine vanity. It was some- 
thing simpler and nobler he had thought he saw in 
her, and the little circumstance checked the friend- 
ship. For a year there was no advance beyond a 
fitful, occasional correspondence. " You will smile," 
she writes him afterward, " when I say that your 
silence has repeatedly done me good, by showing 
me from my disappointment how much my heart 
still cleaved to the world, and how much my happi- 
ness still depended on objects of time and sense." 
But her attraction toward the seldom seen stranger 
was slowly dying out, and life beginning to take on 
sober tints, as she walked on her way in the faithful 
round of home and church duties, when suddenly 
came her father's fatal illness. Impulsively, and as a 



58 Youth and Marriage, 

vent to her overburdened heart, she told her anxiety 
and distress to him, as a letter of his was just then 
waiting for an answer. In response to his next one, 
she told him of her father's death. His reply awak- 
ened a deeper sentiment of friendship than she had 
felt before. She recognized a comprehension of her 
deepest experiences, and a sympathy sufficient for 
even that time of distress. 

" The links that bound their hearts together, 
They were not forged in sunny weather, 
Nor will they moulder and decay 
As the long hours pass away ; 
What slighter things cannot endure 
Will make their love more safe and pure." 

Early in December he was to visit her in North- 
ampton. He had, in the fall, become a pastor in 
North Bridgewater (now Brockton), Mass. The sud- 
den prevalence of scarlet fever in his parish made 
him feel it wrong to leave his people for any personal 
end. She writes to him, December 9, 1833, "I am 
sorry to have your intended visit deferred, though I 
am the last one who would wish you to leave your 
people in a time of special affliction, for your own or 
my gratification. I know too well the value of a 
pastor's visits at such a time wantonly to deprive 
others of them." 

To the same she writes, December 16, " Self- 
reproach is a frequent and unprofitable exercise. 



Youth and Marriage. 59 

I have found, upon analyzing my feelings, that it has 
often been nothing more than a kind of penance for 
the indulgence of some darling sin. I have been 
contented to make myself unhappy, rather than 
simply to repent and forsake my sin. Surely this 
is unacceptable as well as unwise. It cannot please 
our Heavenly Father to see us wretched. On the 
contrary, the provision he has made for our happi- 
ness proves that he desires it. How much we need 
to offer the prayer, ' Lord, increase our faith.' If 
Edwards's views of the dealings of God are correct, 
surely no other feelings should be excited in our 
hearts, when enduring affliction, but those of grateful 
love. I think there is no way in which we can obtain 
such a sense of the love of God, as by contemplating 
the manner in which he enables his people to resist 
and overcome sin ; we can never realize what an evil 
and bitter thing it is, unless we are made to taste 
some of its evils. 

" A happy home has been my idol, and it was at 
this the blow was aimed ; for, dear as this spot is and 
ever must be to my heart, it can never seem like 
home to me again. It is my desire to live hence- 
forth like a pilgrim and stranger on the earth. I 
know, if the spirit is willing, the flesh is very weak, 
but I know, too, He is faithful who promised, who 
also will do it." 



60 Youth and Marriage. 

At Christmas time the deferred visit was made, 
and they were pledged to each other. 

" I am but too happy," she writes, January 3, 
1834, " in the consciousness that I have given my 
heart and my happiness to one who possesses my 
entire confidence, and who I know will love me 
better than I can ever deserve. In heart we are 
already one. Henceforth my happiness will consist 
in sharing your joys and sorrows, in relieving your 
cares, and by every means in my power making your 
home a peaceful and happy retreat from the anxieties 
of your arduous duties." 

January 1 1. — "To say that I can part with so 
many near and dear friends, under the thousand ties 
that have been accumulating and attaching me to 
this loved spot, even for you, without pain, would be 
a libel on the better feelings of our nature. Surely, 
you would neither love nor respect me could you 
believe it possible. Mr. Todd told me I should have 
so many things to occupy my attention, I should not 
think much of society. But enough on this point 
My greatest fear is that I shall not realize your ex- 
pectations. You have formed a much higher opinion 
of me than I deserve. One thing I can say in sin- 
cerity, I desire to be all that you have described, and 
that from the first it has been my determination never 
to let my feelings interfere with the most self-denying 



Youth and Marriage. 61 

duties to which you may be called. I wish to feel 
that we are united in the service of our Redeemer, 
that we belong wholly to him, and that we must 
find our happiness in promoting the interests of his 
kingdom. I feel that we must specially guard our- 
selves on this point, lest we become so much en- 
grossed in our personal happiness as to forget our 
higher and holier obligations. We know our Heav- 
enly Father is not displeased when we are happy in 
the enjoyment of his rich blessings. We know, too, 
that he is not pleased when we rest here. 

" Is it a continual effort for a true Christian to 
keep his heart on spiritual things, or does it rise 
spontaneously to heaven? David says, 'When I 
awake I am still with thee.' Ought we, or ought we 
not, to require this heavenly state of mind as an evi- 
dence of discipleship? I have been much tried of 
late with these questions, for I do not find that dead- 
ness to the world which I think I ought to possess. 
You will have a wayward heart to guide in the 
straight and narrow way, but with all its imperfections 
it will never know change in its devotion to you." 

While she was still expecting and hoping to be a 
pastor's wife, an old friend, Mrs. President Wheeler, 
of the Vermont University, wrote her: " My dear, I 
know you do not intend to have your happiness con- 
sist in having every earthly circumstance suited to 



62 Yottth and Marriage. 

your taste. The wife of a minister of the gospel 
must rise above this and breathe in a higher air. She 
must find her happiness in doing good, and her re- 
ward not in the notice or admiration of the world." 

In January, 1834, it was proposed to her friend 
Mr. Thompson to leave his parish and take the 
professorship of Hebrew in the new theological 
seminary about to be established at Windsor Hill, 
Conn. She writes, January 28 : "I felt unwilling at 
first to say a word about k, lest it should influence 
your decision improperly ; but since you have asked 
my opinion, I will give it frankly. The more I think 
of the matter, the more / am averse to your acceptance 
of the appointment. I cannot think your opportu- 
nities of usefulness can be so great as in the station 
you now occupy, and it does not seem to me so re- 
sponsible or important an office. It may be one of 
more ease and personal gratification, but I have 
greatly mistaken your character if those motives 
would influence you a moment. If you were truly 
called of God to North Bridgewater, methinks you can 
hardly have accomplished so soon the work appointed 
for you there. I have heard Mr. Todd speak of this 
institution, but so slightly that I hardly know whether 
he approves of its establishment or not. Indeed, I 
have hardly known any thing about it, and but little 
more of Taylorism, to which it is opposed. As far 



Youth and Marriage. 63 

as I am informed in this particular, I should agree 
with them ; but I fear that if this has not been got 
up in a party spirit, it will excite such a spirit. At any 
rate, those connected with it must almost necessarily 
be constantly engaged in controversy. That, cer- 
tainly, is very undesirable. I have perhaps spoken 
rashly. Further light may alter my opinion, but as 
it is, it strikes me it would be foolish for you to go. 
There is not sufficient inducement to make it your 
duty to leave the ministry, especially when the call 
for laborers is so great. If you decide to go, forget 
what I have said, and be assured I shall acquiesce in 
whatever arrangement you may be led in the Provi- 
dence of God to make. 

"I have mentioned it to no one but Daniel, and 
he laconically replied, ' He had better stay where he 
is.' It shall be my increasing prayer that God will 
guide you with heavenly wisdom, that you may be 
delivered from all unhallowed motives and secure his 
approbation." 

February 4. — "I have feared, since I wrote, that I 
spoke too hastily and too decidedly considering the 
light I had on the subject, and though I have seen as 
yet no reason for altering my opinion, I have thought 
perhaps I ought not to have expressed one. Be as- 
sured of this one thing, my loved friend, where you 
are, there is my home and there shall I be happy. 



64 Youth and Marriage. 

" I cannot tell you half how precious your minia- 
ture is to me. It has a small black string attached 
to it, and is entirely concealed in the folds of my 
dress, so that I can wear it without attracting obser- 
vation. The longer I look at it, the more distinctly 
can I trace your image. 

" Willingly can I leave every other friend and 
dwell with you. My friend, Elizabeth S., left this 
morning for New York, to try the effect of change 
and sea air. I fear she will never be better. Com- 
panions from childhood, and bosom friends for years, 
I often looked forward to the time when, in fulfilment 
of a mutual promise, I should stand as bridesmaid by 
her side." 

April 4. — "I was in the garden this morning, 
watching the progress of the flowers, and after some 
searching espied a ' Forget-me-not,' the first flower 
that has opened its delicate petals to welcome the 
spring. I enclose it for you. Look on it and think 
of ' one who will forget thee never! " 

The following June, Mr. Thompson's call to the 
Connecticut Seminary, which, after serious considera- 
tion, he had declined in the winter, was repeated; a 
committee visited him, and pressed his acceptance by 
the most perplexing appeals to his conscience and 
spirit of self-sacrifice. 

" I did hope," Eliza Butler writes, " that the call 



Youth and Marriage, 65 

from Windsor would not be renewed. My personal 
feeling about it remains unchanged, but you know, 
my dear friend, I would not have that influence your 
decision either way." 

After long debate, the perseverance of the Connec- 
ticut committee was rewarded by his consent to the 
call of a council to whom the whole matter should 
be referred. He accepted their decision, and after a 
pastorate of one year, left Bridgewater for Windsor. 
True to her word, when the decision was made, Eliza 
Butler accepted it quietly, buried her bright dreams 
of sharing with him the parish life, which had a pecu- 
liar attraction for her, and poured out her sympathy 
for him in the experience which he wrote her was 
" like tearing limb from limb." 

Once before that she had written, " I dreamed 
last night that you were here, and had decided not 
to leave Bridgewater." But after this no more is 
said. It was not till years had passed, and her chil- 
dren were grown, that any one knew what it had cost 
them both to go cheerfully to Windsor. 

" It matters little," she writes him, "in what part of 
the vineyard it shall be, if we are found at last to be 
faithful laborers. I feel in your society the wilder- 
ness would lose its gloom and the desert its dreari- 
ness. In contributing to your happiness and enjoying 
your love, my days would pass on, I might almost 

5 



66 Youth and Marriage. 

say, unmarked by a shade of sorrow ; but that would 
be an unreal picture, too full of joy for this transitory 
life. 

" I can never be sufficiently grateful for the gift of 
such a friend, whose sympathy and affection I have 
so much reason to value ; but, by the help of God, my 
dearest friend, I will not suffer you to do the work 
of an enemy and wean my affections from my 
Saviour. I have found by bitter experience, that 
even your love, precious as it is, would be a poor 
compensation for the loss of his favor." 

yane 26. — "I do feel that our affection is not of 
a selfish, worldly nature, but a hallowed flame, and 
one that I trust will grow brighter and brighter to 
eternity. The more my heart expands with love to 
God, and I feel the presence of my Saviour, the 
more strongly is my heart bound to you. I have 
just returned from Miss D.'s, where I have spent an 
hour in prayer and conversation with her and another 
sister. Miss D. spoke of the importance of seeking 
and caring for the health of the soul with the same 
earnestness we do for the body. If we watch and 
pray in any measure as we ought, shall we not know 
when the soul is diseased, and apply the remedy? 
Miss D. spoke of the duty of Christians inquiring of 
each other, when they meet, the state of their soul's 
health, and thought the reserve on this subject a 
device of the adversary." 



Youth aitd Marriage. 67 

The love that had been born in shadow was not 
nursed wholly in sunshine. Aside from the trial of 
feeling in regard to leaving Bridgewater, there were 
perplexities of another nature. After her father's 
sudden death, it was found he had so involved him- 
self by loans to a relative who had failed in business, 
that his estate settled far differently from what had 
been expected. Instead of having the means to fur- 
nish her new home with every comfort, as she had 
hoped, in the autumn, she had the pain and mortifica- 
tion of finding, before the spring opened, that her 
outfit must not only be curtailed, but managed with 
the utmost economy. Debts were held in that 
family to be more binding than any matter of feel- 
ing or personal comfort, and Eliza acquiesced in the 
course taken by her mother, to pay from her own 
private income her husband's obligations as far as 
possible, while all outlay, even for the daughter's 
marriage, was brought within the strictest limits. 

The respect in which he had been held, and the 
knowledge that his embarrassments were the results 
of nothing more than excess of confidence and kind- 
ness, did not prevent some of the wealthier creditors 
from profiting by the honorable self-sacrifice of the 
widow and children, while others less able refused to 
allow them to straiten and cripple themselves. 

It was with a rather heavy heart that Eliza wrote 



68 Youth and Marriage. 



to Mr. Thompson, " If you had seen me last night, 
you would have seen a long face and a sad one." 
After stating the difficulty, she says : " Your disap- 
pointment is not the least fruitful source of sadness. 
I did not like to have the family see how much I 
felt, and it was not till I had retired to the solitude 
of my room that I gave vent to my feelings. The 
image of my beloved father came to mind, who would 
have relieved me from all this care, but who was 
now cold and silent in the grave, beyond the reach 
of the wants or affection of his child. But I was 
not alone. I felt there was One who by these little 
disappointments was making me realize the perma- 
nency and value of his love. Have we not, my be- 
loved friend, committed our way unto him, and 
besought him not to leave us to ourselves, and shall 
we now withdraw our trust and murmur because he 
is answering our prayer and leading us by a way we 
know not? I think I can say, 'Though he slay me, 
yet will I trust in him.' 

" I went out to walk this morning, called on Mrs. 
T., found her in great anxiety for one of her children 
who is quite ill, — that bright, black-eyed little girl you 
saw there. The little boy has also been sick, and Mr. 
B. has an infant son on the verge of the grave. Here 
is real trouble, and I thought how selfish and sinful I 
was to feel unhappy for a moment, because every 



Youth and Marriage. 69 

wish of my heart could not be gratified. I hope 
your feelings are under better control than mine have 
been. I have dreaded to tell you what I know you 
would not love to hear, especially at this time when 
you feel such a weight of anxiety ; but still I felt that 
sooner or later you must know it, and I should not 
mend the matter by deferring it." 

In the next letter her unconquerable hope begins 
to brighten. She thinks it much " harder for Daniel 
than for herself, because after having been engaged a 
year, this trouble will oblige him to defer his mar- 
riage two years more." 

Their wedding-day was finally fixed for September. 
Her busy hands were more than full with sewing and 
preparation, but till within a fortnight of the time, she 
went on with her daily study and recitations at Miss 
D.'s, only pausing then because she must, and prom- 
ising herself that they should be resumed immedi- 
ately after her marriage. 

" You would be gratified," she writes, " to hear the 
many kind expressions of affection and regret which 
I hear on every side, not only from my particular 
friends and associates, but from those with whom I 
have incidentally been brought in contact in the 
humbler walks of life. I shall be in danger of think- 
ing of myself more highly than I ought to think." 

Referring to some arrangements, she says, in a 



jo Youth and Marriage. 

letter of August 28 : " We do indeed need to possess 
our souls in patience. There is nothing that natu- 
rally tries me more than this state of suspense, but I 
am happy to say it has this time not in the least 
ruffled my spirit. I feel at this moment perfectly 
willing Providence should order each event as Infi- 
nite Wisdom determines. I have in general been 
able to take things quietly." 

In the last letters before her marriage, she says : 
" In thinking of the best means of promoting our 
happiness and usefulness in the married state, it oc- 
curred to me much advantage would accrue from the 
habit of conversing with freedom and confidence on 
our personal experience in religion. Unless we are 
on our guard, there is danger that the duties of the 
family and the thousand interesting occurrences of 
the day will preclude this important topic. 

" It requires no effort to picture myself by your 
side on the banks of the beautiful river we visited in 
July, with its deep green woods and its calm surface 
reposing in the soft, still moonbeam. Aside from 
the tender recollections associated with the falling 
leaf, autumn is to me a hallowed season. If it is sad, 
it is a cheerful sadness. The vigor and freshness of 
spring seem like the commencement of a new exist- 
ence, but when that freshness is gone and that vigor 
decays, we feel that the fashion of this world passes 



Youth and Marriage. 71 

away, and we are hastening to the rest of eternity. 
This, while it chastens our happiness, need not dimin- 
ish it, and while it makes us grave, need not make us 
sad. 

" It is almost impossible for us to realize the ex- 
tent of the influence we shall exert upon each other, 
both in spiritual and temporal things, and unless the 
Lord hallow that influence, it will drag our affections 
earthward. My dear William, the bars of the grave 
will undoubtedly close upon one of us, and leave 
the other desolate, and were it not for the hope 
of blessed reunion beyond its narrow precincts, the 
thought of an attachment like ours would be miser- 
able." 

The last entry in her diary is dated August 24, 
1834. " I am looking forward in a few weeks to the 
most important earthly connection ever formed, one 
that will materially affect my happiness and useful- 
ness in this world, and my hopes beyond the grave. 
I bless God for giving me such a precious friend as I 
possess in his servant, that I have been kept from 
giving my affections to one who did not love Christ, 
and have been permitted to bestow them upon one 
who is consecrated to his service. And now, blessed 
Saviour, smile upon us, and if we are permitted to 
pitch our tabernacle and dwell together, may we so 
regulate our affections and conduct that we shall aid 



72 Youth and Marriage. 

each other in every duty, promote each other's 
growth in grace, and exert a happy influence on 
those around us. And now I renewedly consecrate 
myself to thee; all the affections of my soul, this 
precious friend, all that I have or may have, to thee 
and thy service. Help me to resolve to perform the 
duties of a wife, and the head of a family, according 
to the requisitions of thy Word. I now resolve to 
give my husband my undivided confidence and love, 
to obey him in the Lord ; never to stand in the way 
of his duty, or hold him back from self-denial and 
suffering for the sake of Christ, but aid him in every 
duty by my prayers, counsel, and efforts, as God 
shall give me grace. His friends shall be my friends, 
his interests mine. Resolved to honor God in my 
family, to order my household according to his word, 
to honor the Sabbath, and to be governed by the 
directions of God in the various relations of the 
family. Resolved to be hospitable to strangers, kind 
to the afflicted, and above all to lend my influence, 
time, and talents to the promotion of Christ's king- 
dom in the earth. Blessed Saviour, thou hast heard 
these solemn vows ; thou knowest my weakness and 
depravity, — that, if left to myself, I shall not be able 
to redeem. them. Wilt thou magnify the riches of thy 
grace, perfect thy strength in my weakness, and use 
me and mine as instruments for thy glory." 



Youth and Marriage. J$ 

The wedding was on the 25th of September, 1834. 

" I very distinctly remember her appearance on 
that morning," writes one of her cousins. " She was 
rather tall and slight; her whole bearing was en- 
tirely self-possessed, and in her artless, girlish sim- 
plicity she seemed to stand there because she had 
been told to." In the little book which holds her 
wedding bouquet, there is a pressed violet not wholly 
faded yet. 

Their wedding journey, which gave them a glimpse 
of the Vermont mountains and Lake George, lasted 
a week or two, and in October they arrived at Wind- 
sor, where the Theological Seminary was opening its 
first session. 

It is amusingly characteristic of her life-long in- 
difference to what she thought unessential, that in a 
letter from her sister Maria, which met her at New 
York on this trip, she is exhorted to wear " a white 
shawl, not the red one, if the weather grows cool, as 
the white one is more proper." 



CHAPTER III. 
THE HEAT AND BURDEN OF THE DAY. 



III. 

THE HEAT AND BURDEN OF THE DAY. 

" Still thou tttmedst, and still 
Beckonedst the tremble?-, and still 
Gavest the weary .thy hand. 

To us thou wast still 
Cheerful, and helpful, and firm ! 
Therefore to thee it was given 
Many to save with thy self " 

Arnold. 

" "VTOUR mother was a lovely bride," a dear friend 
used to say. " I shall never forget how her face 
looked, when she first came into our house, in her 
cottage bonnet tied down with a white ribbon. Her 
complexion was exquisite, not red, but pink and 
white, and besides being so pretty, she had such a 
look of goodness." 

One of her first joys was the meeting with her 
husband's family, his father having removed from 
Norwich to Windsor the year before. " Her manner 
was winning and very quiet," says a sister; " but what 
drew us to her most, at first, was the expression of 
her eyes, so beautiful, clear, and true," — 



' Eyes too expressive to be blue, 
Too lovely to be gray." 



7 8 The Heat and Burden of the Day. 

From the moment of the first kiss of welcome to 
" William's wife," there was, to the end, on both sides, 
warmth and constancy of love. 

The strength of his mother's character impressed 
her at once and increasingly. " Your Grandmother 
Thompson was a remarkable woman," was one of 
her common sayings in after years ; and she always 
insisted that the tie of blood could not have made 
the two sisters more truly sisters to her. With so 
much positiveness of character on all sides, one must 
believe there was opportunity for friction; but for 
them, 

" Love was always lord of all." 

Whatever tears were to be shed, as separation and 
death came in the different circles, there were never 
mingled those of broken confidence. 

For a year the home was in Mr. Ellsworth's family, 
and there the first child came and went. 

In October of 1835 their house was finfshed, and 
they began housekeeping in it, gathering as many 
family friends as possible around them when they 
sat down for the first time at their own table. There 
was no lack of quiet merry-making ; but at the close 
it was with the hush of hearts that realized what is 
wrapped up in the founding of a new home, that 
fhey knelt and consecrated it with fervent prayer. 

The region of the Seminary was charming, as is all 



The Heat and Burden of the Day. 79 

of the Connecticut Valley. One enthusiastic friend 
of the institution, standing for the first time on the 
brow of the hill and looking off on the winding river, 
the meadows, and the old elms, exclaimed with em- 
phasis, " The millennium will begin here." 

The new Professor's house, however, was planted 
literally in a sand-bank. There was not a blade of 
grass or a tree, nothing to fill out the idea of home 
to eyes from which the Pleasant Street picture had not 
yet faded. 

Eliza Butler had recorded, in the diary of her girl- 
hood, her longings for a missionary life, and a desire 
to serve God in India or the Sandwich Islands. She 
now found herself called upon to meet many of the 
privations and to make the peculiar sacrifices of such 
a life, with none of its romance to smooth the way. 
The enterprise with which she and her husband 
were identified was struggling, doubtful, unpopular. 
Funds were scarce, the salary a pittance, the atmos- 
phere necessarily one of debate and antagonism. " I 
was at the sewing-society yesterday," wrote Maria 
Butler, from Northampton, to her sister, during that 
first year, " and the girls were mourning over you. 
They said Eliza Butler was being spoiled, her letters 
were full of nothing but Taylorism and Tylerism." 

In her new surroundings she was easily fired with 
the same ardent belief in the essential nature of the 



80 The Heat and Burden of the Day. 

doctrinal distinctions of the Seminary, which had in- 
spired its founders. Once convinced that Christ's 
kingdom was to be furthered by the institution, all 
her single-hearted devotion was turned into that 
channel. 

That remarkable hereditary resemblance to the 
grandmother, with whom the church leaders of her 
day had discussed doctrine and precept, now came 
out in the granddaughter. She entered with zeal into 
the theological discussions about her, and grasped 
the various points with clearness and force. 

It was said of her, by David N. Lord, of the Theo- 
logical Review, who knew Mrs. Thompson in these 
years, that he had never met a lady so intelligently 
informed on theological subjects. It was partly due 
to the cast of her mind, delighting in this as in any 
other science, and partly to the profound genuine- 
ness of her spiritual nature, which transfused with its 
own warmth whatever related to religion. 

There was no such thing as debasing the moral 
currency in her presence. Something in the solid 
dignity of that true face silenced the flippant word. 

To the child at her knee uttering what to her 
seemed passionate blasphemy out of its too early 
protesting and stormy soul, she had something to 
offer better perhaps than the convincing word, — 
the sudden whitening of her cheek, which made evi- 



The Heat and Burden of the Day. 8 1 

dent beyond any doubt her own reverent love for 
God. 

The strong conservatism of her mind fitted her to 
work naturally in her new relations. She was ex- 
tremely tenacious in every direction, averse to all 
changes, assenting with reluctance and long debate 
even to those which time afterward taught her had 
been altogether best. Wherever she took rest, either 
in feeling, thought, custom, or place, there it was her 
tendency to abide firmly. Up to the last of her life 
she placed no reliance on the daily weather indica- 
tions, because, not having cared to investigate the 
grounds on which their value rested, she classed 
them in general with " signs "and heathenish divina- 
tions, which in her girlhood Dr. Spencer had taught 
her were " of the adversary." 

She looked with alarm on changes of method as in 
danger of involving change of essence. In that in- 
tricate composition of forces by which some guard 
and some explore, and the resultant is safe advance, 
her part was with the guard. 

That practical good sense whose germs had been 
plainly visible in her earlier life, began to develop 
rapidly under the new circumstances. 

If there were theological students, they and their 
rooms must be made comfortable ; and the house- 
keeping had hardly begun, when a certain attic- 

6 



82 The Heat and Burden of the Day. 

closet was set apart for clothing and bedding for that 
purpose. It was deposited with her by the ladies' 
sewing-societies of the region, and much of it made 
under her own supervision by the circle of ladies in 
the town, over which she presided, and in which she 
worked unsparingly for years. She distributed what 
was gathered, with motherly sympathy and discrimi- 
nating care. One great secret of her triumphant life 
was her habit of distinguishing between great and lit- 
tle things. Little things were not to be minded, — mo- 
mentary discomforts, trifling annoyances, or physical 
pain, unless it was extreme. Her tender heart and 
her well-balanced mind went side by side with her 
deep religious convictions, in the drawing of this line, 
and kept her from great errors. When it was drawn, 
it was found to bar out on the side of trifles, what 
the majority of men and women find great enough 
for controlling motives. She was thus free to follow 
steadily worthy ends. She steered straight by the 
unessential, content to miss much, while she pressed 
toward the mark. It was this — this heroism of noble 
purposes and high conceptions, and her courage 
born of faith — that made her very face and voice 
such a stimulus and help. " Cloudy fears and shapes 
forlorn " flew away where she entered. 

All this, however, was not full grown when my 
father and mother set about turning the sand-bank 



The Heat and Burden of the Day. %$ 

into a home. She remembered, afterward, more than 
one heart-sinking, and more than one tear brushed 
away before it could be seen. 

The step from the girlish Sunday-afternoon musing 
" by her favorite window " into the intricacies of life, 
of which those musings had given her no hint, was 
one to test the fibre of ardent aspirations. The 
problems that meet all women who have any 
strength of nature met her. Her experience was 
nowhere shallow. But it was her habit to grapple 
with difficulties rather than to sink under them or 
to chafe too long. The young face, that looked con- 
fidingly out from under the cottage-bonnet as she 
stepped from the carriage, in the light of the yellow 
maples and the sunset of that October day which 
brought her to the Ellsworth mansion, concealed un- 
guessed reserves of force. 

Many a time, later, she laughed, in recounting how 
the seeds they first planted in the garden blew away, 
the soil was so light. But every trip to Northampton 
brought back stores of bulbs, shrubs, and choice 
apple-tree cuttings ; the perseverance that would 
not be baffled found out that clay would conquer 
sand, and before the children were old enough to 
remember, maples and locusts, horse-chestnuts and 
fir-trees, were growing everywhere. There were 
willows by the little brook, shrubs in the ravine, 



84 The Heat and Burden of the Day. 

terraces, vines on the arbor trellis, flowers of every 
sort in the garden, and in every nook where they 
could be put; and for the winter, what blooming of 
callas, of pink cactuses in blue jars, of heliotropes 
and carnations, what trailing of ivies and passion- 
flowers ! 

In the spring, when the turf was green and the 
orchard in bloom, and the bees were humming 
among the hyacinths and daffodils, she delighted 
to recall the contrast, with a feeling that the now 
lovely place had been created by a determination to 
succeed. 

Little by little cares thickened. The time for pur- 
suing Latin and philosophy did not come. Much 
that had been anticipated slipped into the list of 
things deferred, and a sort of unconscious, undra- 
matic silence flowed over them, while the tides of 
cheerful, active life rose and fell more and more 
strongly above. 

How can it be told what those years were ! The 
enterprise to which her husband had given all the 
hope and ambition of his youth dragged slowly on. 
Every step was a struggle. Funds accumulated 
slowly, and salaries continued small, while wants in- 
creased. Every year large subscriptions were made 
from that meagre sum to the Seminary, because it 
was felt to be for Christ's sake, while the empty 



The Heat and Burden of the Day, 85 

library shelves in the husband's study remained 
unfilled, and the needs of the growing family were 
supplied only by the closest economy and strictest 
industry on the part of the young mother. The 
slender white hands grew used to all sorts of house- 
hold toil. Others gave thought, sympathy, money, 
— they gave not only that, but literally themselves. 
Never, but for a few months, in all the period of her 
housekeeping, did she have a house-maid who could 
render any but the most indifferent service. And 
never, but for periods of a few weeks, had she any 
one to assist in the care of the children. When there 
were five, as when there was one, it was she who was 
seamstress, nursery-maid, and often cook. 

The week before her wedding, she said to her 
friend Elizabeth, as they walked down the street, hav- 
ing a last talk, that her great dread was of not being 
equal to what would befall her. " I am not quick, 
you know," she said. " I cannot turn off things 
as some can, and a great deal of the time I do not 
feel strong." " No, Eliza Butler," was the answer, 
" but you can endure. That will be worth more to 
you than quickness." Her own sense of weariness 
or illness she always concealed till it reached the 
point of positive disease, and she had to succumb. 
Often, she used to say, she had held herself in her 
chair at her sewing, when from nervous exhaustion 



86 The Heat and Burden of the Day. 

it seemed every moment as if she must scream and 
throw the work aside ; but always held herself there 
until it was done, taking so many patient, intermina- 
ble stitches in the little coats and aprons, before the 
days of sewing-machines and ready-made garments, 
sitting up late with the aching back and head, that 
only mothers know, to turn and mend and make 
over, after the hard long day and wakeful nights 
with the babies, so that what her skill and labor 
saved might go to pay the subscription to the Semi- 
nary and build up the good cause. 

It was in such days as these that many a student, 
oppressed with poverty and unable to meet his board- 
bills, was welcomed for months at their table, with a 
hospitality so cheerful that it was many a time un- 
appreciated. Aside from the deliberate sacrifices 
made for Christ's sake, no kind of pain or want ap- 
pealed to her in vain. If there was ever a house 
where there were " tears for all woes, a heart for all 
distress," it was theirs. Effort, trouble, discomfort, 
were not reckoned. In summer and winter, no 
matter what the accumulated basket of sewing, or 
whether Bridget was in the kitchen or not, she was 
ready to go to the sick, to watch with them, to use 
her skill in making the arrowroot or beef-tea, that no 
one else could do quite so well. There was no com- 
fortable hotel in the village, so that, among others, 



The Heat and Burden of the Day. Sy 

their house naturally became a home for all friends of 
the Seminary, travelling ministers, or agents ; and in 
all cases there was but one thought, " Blessed is he 
that cometh in the name of the Lord." 

The only exception ever known was in the early 
days of her housekeeping, when a certain brother 
tarried long, and was finally discovered to have 
adopted the guest-room closet as the depository of 
his horse-blanket, when, with a spark of righteous in- 
dignation, the young matron repaired to the study, 
and announced that that she could not submit to. 

Consecration was no mystery to her, but a most 
practical experience. The social training of her 
youth was offered on the same altar with greater gifts. 
Seeing that the students needed more social life than 
they were likely to have, for their pleasure and their 
good, twice every year she gave them an entertain- 
ment, inviting seventy or more, as it happened, quite 
regardless of the fact that the cake must be made 
with her own hands, and the ice-cream churned by 
an interminable process in her own cellar. She had 
seldom time to arrange her hair, in these days, after 
the fashion of her girlhood, but sometimes for these 
special occasions she did, and her appearance is well 
remembered, as she welcomed her guests with a 
sweet sincerity that set the whole evening in the 
right key. 



88 The Heat and Burden of the Day. 

More than once it happened that after the invita- 
tions were given, her husband would be attacked 
with violent sick-headache, to which he was subject 
nearly every week. She would come from bathing 
his head, to receive her company, without a sign of 
disquiet, or hint in face or manner, of confusion and 
disappointment. 

How she was valued by the students is well told 
by the tribute of Dr. E. W. Bentley, read at the 
Seminary anniversary in 1879. 

" Very rarely, for a long course of years, has this anniver- 
sary failed of the light and cheer of Mrs. Thompson's pres- 
ence. Indeed, so identified was she with the social element 
of our anniversary, that to many of us this day's home-coming 
is akin, in its chastened sadness, to the Thanksgiving anni- 
versary in the homestead whence the mother's face and form 
are gone for ever. Mrs. Thompson was the connecting link 
between many of us and much that is pleasantest and longest- 
lived in our seminary associations. Whatever may be true 
since the removal of the Seminary to the city, and the conse- 
quent widening of the social circle around it, I feel warranted 
in saying that at East Windsor Hill, our seminary 'home- 
life ' centred largely in Mrs. Thompson. Our circumstances 
there were somewhat peculiar. Our numbers all told were . 
few, and class distinctions, however informal and loosely 
held, narrowed still more the area of our restricted intima- 
cies. Most of us were fresh from our large college associa- 
tions with their attendant and varied excitements, and we 
found it hard to settle ourselves down into the narrow grooves 
in which our seminary life seemed to drag itself along. And 



The Heat and Burden of the Day. 89 

the outside neighborhood was nearly as contracted as the 
Seminary. The families who cared for our acquaintance, 
though cultured and refined and hospitable, were still infre- 
quent and scattered. And thus isolated, the homelike ease 
and restfulness of Mrs. Thompson's parlor and sitting-room, 
near at hand, drew us thither when we cared to go nowhere 
else. In those days Mrs. Thompson's family circle was un- 
broken. The law of love hedged gently in her group of 
children. . . . Happening in at whatever hour, we found a 
cheerful welcome. Doubtless we wearied her often with our 
budgets of personal interests and petty concerns ; but if so 
she never disclosed the fact. Encouraged by her sympathy, 
we made her the confidante of hopes and struggles and as- 
pirations, such as grown-up boys intrust only to their mothers 
or elder sisters. In the occasional social gatherings to which 
we were invited in the neighborhood, it was Mrs. Thompson's 
quick notice and kindly tact that placed us at once at ease, 
and drew the best side of us socially to the front. Some of 
us — I speak for the more awkward and bashful ones among 
us — almost uniformly rated our enjoyment of the hour by 
her presence or absence. 

" Still another service Mrs. Thompson rendered us. She 
was an admirable critic. She grasped a subject firmly, and 
examined it firmly and leisurely. And especially did its 
strong points never escape her. She had in full training an 
eye for proportions. Nothing that was mismatched or un- 
balanced or lop-sided eluded her notice. Hence her sug- 
gestions concerning subjects and modes of treating them — 
subjects which in many cases subsequently grew into essays 
and addresses and sermons — were of special use to us in 
our raw apprenticeship. In our debates and public exer- 
cises, which she did penance in attending with persistent 
regularity, her presence and intelligent interest gave us cour- 



9<D The Heat and Burden of the Day. 

age and stimulated endeavor. Some of us will never forget 
how patiently she followed us through our protracted discus- 
sion of the ' Maine Law,' beginning some time in January, 
in the Seminary chapel, and ending along in March, down at 
the South Windsor Lecture Room. An immense service of 
this kind, a service which only a rare delicacy of perception 
like hers could discern and appreciate the importance of, 
Mrs. Thompson rendered to the students year after year; 
encouraging them to undertake literary work, broadening 
their area of thought, and keeping them toned up to a high 
key of earnestness and zeal. 

" Another way in which Mrs. Thompson served us most 
efficiently was through her devoted attachment to the Semi- 
nary and her familiarity with its principles and aims. To 
present this service in its entirety would compel me to en- 
large upon the peculiar position of the Institute at that time, 
and to speak of difficulties and temptations which tended to 
shake our faith in it and to break down our loyalty to it. 
But this is neither the time nor place for such a showing. 
It is enough to say that, both from within and without, a 
pressure was put upon us, sometimes annoying and at all 
times troublesome. We were young men with aspirations 
for usefulness and ambitious of success. We were desirous 
to know and obey the truth, but at the same time did not 
want, if we could help it, to be put without the pale of popu- 
lar sympathy and support. 

"And in steadying us under these malign influences, I 
think no agency was more potential than Mrs. Thompson's. 
She seemed to have an instinctive knowledge of the presence 
and weight of these disturbing forces, and combated them 
with a quiet tact and assiduity. She believed in the Seminary 
with all her heart. She understood its relations to other semi- 
naries, and to the commonwealth of the churches. She com- 



The Heat and Burden of the Day, 9 1 

prehended its mission, and was rooted and grounded in the 
faith of its distinctive character and work. And the earnest- 
ness and enthusiasm of her convictions were contagious. She 
seemed never to be troubled with doubts and misgivings. 
Whoever else was discouraged, her faith was unshaken. I 
believe there were times when, if Mrs. Thompson had lost 
heart or hope, the Seminary would have been closed by the 
wasting away of its classes ; and I certainly know that there 
were times when the work which she did in keeping up 
courage and inspiring content among the students was 
simply heroic. I am free to confess that the fulness of my 
sympathy with the Seminary and my confidence in its errand 
and life, came to me through the persuasiveness of Mrs. 
Thompson's far-sighted and strong convictions. 

" Still another channel of Mrs. Thompson's influence over 
the every-day life of the Seminary was her piety. It would 
have been strange if she had not been a theologian. The 
activity and acuteness of her intellect, playing in a theo- 
logical atmosphere, rendered that a necessity. Her piety 
rested back upon a foundation of truth systematically laid. 
And to that foundation she adhered with unswerving fidelity. 
She was unyielding as a rock, where principle was concerned, 
true as steel to her conscientious views of truth and duty. 

" But on the other hand, out of her theology, as out of a 
deep and carefully cultivated soil, there grew a verdure of 
exquisite grace and beauty. What her head perceived and 
what her heart felt, her voice, eye, and hand showed forth. 
Loving, genial, gentle, tenderly considerate of the happiness 
of others, stirred to sympathetic action by the slightest signal 
of sorrow or want, she easily made for herself a straight 
passage-way into the inner recesses of the life of those about 
her. With a winning sweetness she touched here a doubt, 
and it was dissolved ; there a fear, and it vanished away ; and 



92 The Heat and Burden of the Day. 

anon a hope, and it flashed into a flame. And so graceful 
and loving was the ministry, that you discerned in it far less 
of her than of Him in whose name she ministered. 

" And this blending of strength with beauty, of rigidity 
with grace, of ornament with use, was a lucid commentary 
upon the truths which we were daily handling. A system 
which issued in such a life, and a life that so adorned the 
system, we knew had an eternal fitness and a divine sanction. 
The argument from such an example was conclusive. We 
were not laboring in vain nor spending our strength for 
naught. The Word, in manner and form as unfolded to us, 
was suited to win the world to heaven." 

Whatever the emergency, the greater it was, the 
calmer she grew, concentrating all on the duty of the 
moment, and not showing, till all was over, the strain 
of self-control. Some traits of her great-grandfather, 
the wise old physician, showed here. 

Doctors rejoiced to meet her at the sick-bed, know- 
ing she could be relied on not to flinch or fail, and 
never to let her own ease hinder the doing of what 
ought to be done. Can any one who ever felt what 
her care in sickness was ever express or ever forget 
it? The touch of her hand was an anodyne. It was 
so tender and so firm, while her sweet, pitying look 
carried a kind of assurance of relief. It was 

" Continual comfort in a face," 

when she bent over the hot pillow, soothing, minis- 
tering, bringing broth that was exactly right, watch- 



The Heat and Burden of the Day. 93 

ing the long nights through, and for successive weeks 
giving no sign of weariness, except in the fading of 
the pink in her cheeks and the slow whitening about 
her dear, patient mouth. 

She was all this to others besides husband and 
children. It was her hand that smoothed the way to 
death for the mother-in-law, whose home was with 
them for the last year of her life, and whom she 
treated with the most unfailing love and honor. It 
was her privilege to watch by her own mother in her 
last illness, in 1849, and be with her at the close. 
When the fatal illness came to her niece at Piermont, 
there was no hand like Aunt Eliza's to wait upon her, 
feeding her soul with living bread while she com- 
forted the wasting body. How many dying eyes 
she closed, into how many dying ears she spoke the 
name of Him who lived in her, while she so loved and 
gave herself for them. 

In 1842 she had what was supposed to be a fatal 
attack of lung- fever. The physician, a most incom- 
petent one, had given her up. A weeping group 
was standing round her bed, expecting the great 
change every moment, when her lips moved slightly, 
and they caught a whisper. It sounded like " spirit." 
It was thought to refer to her parting soul ; and they 
were straining their ears to hear if perhaps she would 
finish what would be her last word of faith, when the 



94 The Heat and Burden of the Day. 

same whisper came again. " Oh," said the doctor, 
starting from his paralysis, " she means for us to give 
her spirits. Quick ! she may have it. Is there any 
here?" Before the spoon could be brought to her 
lips, her jaws were set so firmly that they were 
obliged to pry them open, and he succeeded in pour- 
ing a little into her mouth. She swallowed it ; another 
spoonful was brought, and she swallowed that. The 
pulse began to beat faintly again, while every breath 
was held in that agony of suspense almost worse than 
despair. The treatment was repeated, and she came 
back to her husband, and the three little children 
who were sleeping, all unconscious of the love that 
was stronger than death. 

She well remembered the experience, the feeling 
that she was slipping away, the thought that she 
must not die, that brandy would save her, and the 
effort to utter the word. 

It was a very characteristic act ; one flutter of fear 
would have turned the scale, but of fear she knew 
little. 

Phantoms that haunt the darkness, possible bur- 
glars, all imaginary dangers, were idle folly to her 
mind. The differing temperament of some of her 
children was a puzzle to her. If a brooding dove 
should hatch orioles, or a swan sea-gulls, there 
might be something of the same surprise. The 



The Heat and Burden of the Day. 95 

causes of the desire for a lamp at night, the dread 
of going alone into a dark room or even into the 
cellar, the ecstasies and glooms and unregulated 
outbursts, were beyond her ken. She yielded to the 
decision of the father, that these things should be 
respected as beyond the child's control, and they 
were well comprehended by him, — but with an evi- 
dent mortification, as at a sign of weakness or lack 
of right reason. Any thing in any direction that 
could be termed silly, she could ill brook. 

There are faithful, true mothers, who yet are never 
exactly motherly; but this one had not only the 
mother-heart for all the suffering world, the brood- 
ing, helpful impulse toward all sorrow and need, but 
the sweet comfortableness that knows just how to 
gather the tired baby limbs into her arms, and smile 
and kiss away the little troubles. Their play was 
dear to her, and her laugh was as merry as theirs. 
No matter what mountains of sewing were waiting 
and pressing, she took time to devise some happy 
surprises for the New Year, birthday-cakes and 
wreaths as each birthday came round; to consider 
dolls for the girls and kites for the boys. 

Not all the instruction she perseveringly gave 
them in Scripture or Catechism so interpreted in- 
finite love and sacrifice to their hearts, as her patient 
step on the stair, climbing with tired feet to soothe 



g6 The Heat and Burden of the Day. 

their fright or toothache. Love that could do and 
suffer and never fail, was the one thing that was 
always sure. They might sometimes weary a little 
of the distinction between moral and natural ability 
and inability, their precise connection with Adam's 
fall, and the exact way in which imputation of sin 
and righteousness fits into the Divine government; 
but their own existence was not surer than the deep 
unselfishness of her daily life, and her most impressive 
teachings were those most unconsciously given. 

" The blessed Master, who can doubt, 
Revealed in saintly lives." 

They knew something real came from that daily 
morning visit to the only quiet room where the door 
could be locked, and the serious eagerness on her 
face when she sat studying her red Bible stole pro- 
foundly into their hearts, while it was still a hope- 
less puzzle what could so delight her in the Prophets 
and the Psalms. 

" Other worldliness," that half-hypercritical, half- 
fanatical way of ridding one's self of the duties of 
this life by absorption with the next, is apt to react 
on those nearly connected in disgust and scepticism. 
Uuzvorldliness is as comforting as it is logical. 
The realness and simplicity of her nature would have 
made the life of a genuine " society woman " impos- 
sible to her. 



The Heat and Burden of the Day. 97 

That intricate system of half truths and whole 
falsehoods, in which words and deeds are nicely ad- 
justed to immediate effect, and social advantage is 
the widest horizon of the mind, seemed to her a 
mournful waste. In her vocabulary lying was lying, 
no matter how skilfully done ; and her habit of call- 
ing things by their right names made her unconscious 
directness as inconvenient and uncomfortable at times, 
as the presence of John the Baptist at Herod's court, 
or as would be the entrance of St. Francis d'Assisi 
into a company of modern Epicureans. 

Her confiding disposition and her own genuine- 
ness made her slow in reading the diagnosis of souls 
poisoned by the malaria of insincerity. She had 
none of the sharp suspiciousness which results 
sometimes from a morbid self-distrust, and some- 
times from the limitations of a shallow and calculat- 
ing nature; but when — as in a life of seventy years 
who does not? — she found herself deceived and dis- 
appointed, she did not grow bitter. There would be 
a time of quiet thinking, a little absent-mindedness, 
unusual to the company of children who expected to 
find her in a certain chair by the west-window, at her 
work-basket, all eyes and ears for them at every in- 
rushing from play or school. If some one of them, 
vaguely seeing what was not understood, stole out 
for a damask rose to fasten in her dress, she would 

7 



98 The Heat and Burden of the Day, 

turn with a warmer kiss and a sweeter smile than 
usual, finding in the love that remained compensa- 
tion for what was lost. The first sharp pang over, and 
the matter thought through, her resolve was taken. 

The letters signed " Yours fondly, faithfully, and 
for ever," by hands that so easily traced more than 
the heart meant, were left lying where they were. 
If there was no more happiness to be had from that 
source, there might still be some to give. It seemed 
to her ignoble and unworthy to allow pride to over- 
rule affection. She could still be kind, though she 
had been mistaken. She could better bear to be 
thought lacking in " proper resentment " than to 
know herself lacking in the quality that "beareth 
and hopeth all things." 

" It is a talent to love. I lacked it," says the 
mother in " Daniel Deronda." " Others have loved 
me, and I have acted their love," — the key of more 
tragedies than hers. 

The " talent of loving" this mother had. More 
than one person to whom she was unfailingly generous 
and patient would be startled to know how accurately 
she had weighed their motives, and from how much 
deeper a source than careless good-nature, sprang 
the unfailing cordiality of her hand. 

That constancy and love are not marketable arti- 
cles as the world goes, did not weigh with this 



The Heat and Burden of the Day. 99 

woman, who followed implicitly that One whose 
kingdom is not of this world. Having loved his own, 
did He not love them unto the end? Knowing long 
and well the falseness of a friend, did He vary in his 
tender patience? Was He not content to bear and 
hide all personal wounds, if He only might win the 
weak, tempted one to a better way? Did He not 
bend to wash his feet at the last moment, if possi- 
bly that final touch of gentleness might save him? 
She would argue, " It is enough for the disciple to 
be as his Lord." 

She used sometimes to say, " I read and hear a 
great deal about wasted love. I do not like it or 
believe it. Such writers call something love that is 
not it. True love is the rarest thing in the world. 
There can't be too much of it, and whoever has it 
to give is the better for it; it can't be wasted." 
With her usual thoroughness the doctrine was ap- 
plied in all departments. One morning her daughters 
came in from the garden with a basket of flowers, 
with exclamations of delight over their beauty, as 
they arranged them in the vases, declaring they 
loved them more than could be told. " No," said 
she, looking up from her sewing, " you don't love 
what you are not willing to work for. When you 
are as ready to weed and transplant as you are to 
arrange, you may say you love flowers." 



i oo The Heat and Burden of the Day. 

Her fondness for Scotch history and the Scotch 
character was always very marked. The stories of the 
Covenanters, of Claverhouse and his troopers, were 
household words. She liked to talk of the Highland 
independence, and to alternate " Scots wha hae with 
Wallace bled," with " Hush, my dear," in singing 
the children to sleep. 

Snatches of Burns's poetry were often on her 
lips. She particularly liked the " Epistle to a Young 
Friend." 

" Ye '11 try the world fu' soon, my lad ; 
And, Andrew dear, believe me, 
Ye '11 find mankind an unco squad, 
And muckle they may grieve ye." 

Approving with a positive nod when she came to 
the verse, — 

" But ah ! mankind is unco weak, 
And little to be trusted ; 
If self the wavering balance shake, 
'T is rarely right adjusted." 

Occasionally, too, she would recite remembered 
bits of Percival, — 

" I saw on the top of a mountain high, 
A gem that shone like fire by night." 

But on the busy week-days there was seldom time 
for reading aloud. In the pressure of baking and 
brewing, mending and making, there was scarcely 



The Heat and Burden of the Day. 101 

ever a quiet hour when the mother could allow her- 
self to gather the children round her to hear a story. 
One day in the week was different from all the rest. 
Before half past ten, the time for the Sunday morn- 
ing service, all five of the children were made ready 
for church, and the Sunday-school lesson reviewed. 
All went together to the service in the Seminary 
chapel, morning and afternoon, and to the Sunday- 
school at noon. Then there was time to learn the 
Catechism and the hymn to recite at evening prayers, 
and while the feeling of repression began to relax, 
the light falling in longer rays across the meadows 
and the garden, all the fibres of the soul sensitive 
from the influences of the day, after the hymn had 
been sung, was the time for reading Pilgrim's Prog- 
ress. A common book read in her clear voice and 
natural intonations, if it was the only one, and at 
that hour, would have been remembered always ; 
but when fiction of all other sorts was forbidden, 
and children's books were almost unknown, the vivid 
imagery of that great work seized the imagination 
with an intense hold, and all human life easily re- 
solved itself into a succession of solitary pilgrimages 
through the Slough of Despond, up the Hill Diffi- 
culty, into the cave of Giant Despair, over the land 
of Beulah, across the river, and beyond the gates of 
the shining city. 



102 The Heat and Burden of the Day. 

The book was begun when the youngest child was 
a baby in the cradle, and read over and over with 
notes and comments, till the baby was old enough 
to read it herself, holding that and the kitten together 
in her lap with an equal affection, in the low chair by 
the open fire. 

When my mother had been married about ten 
years, the proposition came to her youngest sister to 
go on a mission to Syria. The circle of young ladies 
in Northampton, to which the sister belonged, made 
a great outcry against it, protesting that it was a 
monstrous sacrifice, and that she should not so bury 
herself. To them a round of tea-parties and the 
general comfortableness of refined society seemed a 
more rational end of existence than to sha;e in the 
work of putting the story of Jesus Christ into the 
language of millions, to whom his words and ways 
were quite unknown. My mother judged differ- 
ently of ends, and the thought that one so dear to 
her should not do the best thing was more than 
she could bear. She broke away from the tangle 
of household care, and went to Northampton to 
help the sister fight her battle and hold to her 
choice. Who that knew her but can see just how 
she enveloped the right with so cheerful, clear an 
atmosphere, that the way seemed plain and possi- 
ble. When her own hands had made the wedding- 



The Heat and Burden of the Day. 103 

cake, and packed the trunks that were to be unpacked 
so far away, and her strong faith and courage had 
held up the parting one through the farewells and 
the setting out, only then she found space for her 
own tears, and to acknowledge the sharp heart-ache 
of the separation from one who from babyhood had 
been her pet and darling. 

Distances in those days were greater than now, 
and for the one who remained in her native valley, 
it was a long good-by to her who went to live in the 
shadow of Mt. Lebanon, and among Syrian palms 
and oleanders. There was no expectation of her 
return. " Until the resurrection of the just," was as 
real a part of the good-by, as if the coffin lid had 
closed upon the cherished face. 

The arrival of letters in envelopes queerly cut 
through in crosswise shape was an event in the 
household, suggesting to the children their first no- 
tions of quarantine, — very vague ones, quarantine 
figuring in their minds as a sort of fierce tyrant, 
dressed like a Koord, according to the pictures in 
the geography, and missionary life assuming a some- 
what serious character to their thought, from this 
dim connection with Asiatic cholera, as well as from 
the necessity of writing on so very thin paper and 
having the letters cut in the post-office. 

How eagerly she read these letters, entering into 



104 The Heat and Burden of the Day. 

every experience with a love untouched by time or 
distance, welcoming the distant nieces and nephews 
as they came to the home she had never seen, pack- 
ing boxes from time to time for the missionary sister, 
with such tender heartiness, teaching her children that 
it was a privilege to send their most cherished keep- 
sakes to those who had gone so far away to teach 
the heathen people the wonderful love of Christ. 

In later years she wrote to a married daughter: 
" I have noticed that the time of young motherhood, 
when the children are small, and all one's strength 
apparently demanded for the care of their physical 
wants, is a time of great spiritual danger." 

But in these very years my mother added to her 
untiring faithfulness in household duties, persistent 
striving after closer union with God, feeling that 
spiritual life was something deeper than a succession 
of right actions. 

That saints in cloisters and retreats should aspire 
toward holiness and yearn for personal communion 
with God, we ever find inspiring, and so keep Fene- 
lon and A Kempis on our tables for a portion of our 
daily food ; but there is surely a deeper reverence 
due to the mother who, training five children under 
disadvantages such as beset ours, still under and 
through all seeks growth in the life of the soul, and 
to know the will of God in every thing. 



The Heat and Burden of the Day. 105 

"Aunt Eliza is not a saint," said a young niece, 
hearing her called so ; " she is bright and happy like 
the rest of us," seeing no asceticism and not pene- 
trating her secret. 

One has only to recall the instances he has known 
of women whose youthful diaries were full of relig- 
ious fervor, nearly as ardent as that we find in Eliza 
Butler's, and whom, a few years later, he has found 
measuring things by purely worldly standards, all 
absorbed in securing playmates of good social con- 
nections for John and Addie, in arranging Nannie's 
first party, and selecting baby's sashes, having re- 
duced their religion to a decorous church-going, a 
mechanical Bible-reading, and a general intention to 
do " about right," — he has only to recall it all, to feel 
there is something worth recording in this living fire 
of piety, " which many waters of earthly care could 
not quench, nor floods of toil drown." 

The youngest child was still a tiny baby in her 
arms, when Dr. Spencer published his " Pastor's 
Sketches," a unique book in its record of soul treat- 
ment. His old parishioner read it, and wrote him. 
His answer has a certain pathos, and reveals his 
estimate of her. 

My very dear Child, — It has given me much pleas- 
ure to read your kind letter. The reading is associated 
with many tender and sacred recollections of past days, 



106 The Heat and Burden of the Day, 

when the sun of your youth and mine (comparatively) was 
shining in its strength. Now, you the mother of five 
children ? How time rolls on ! And are your cheeks as 
rosy as ever, and your fine hair as flowing? Ah, time 
changes us ! Would that it always prepared us for our 
last change ! I am glad to hear you have not forgotten 
the serious scenes amid which we once walked together. 
I am glad if the recollection encourages you or makes you 
grateful. I trust that the same grace which met you so 
early in life, and consecrated the bloom of your youth and 
beauty to God, will attend you to the end, and make you 
as lovely in the last stage of your pilgrimage as we used 
to think you in the first. I am greatly obliged to you and 
to your husband for your kind opinion of my Sketches. 
You will not be sorry to know that I am receiving daily 
more and more evidences of its utility. 

Farewell, my dear girl. Live near to Christ ; you shall 
soon be near to him in all the bliss and splendors of im- 
mortality. God grant it to you, is the fond prayer of 
Your affectionate friend and pastor, 

I. S. Spencer. 

Two years after, she passed through a deep ex- 
perience in the long, terrible illness of her husband. 
For many weeks he was so prostrated that the 
slightest sound was torture to him. It was necessary 
to send all the younger children from the house, 
while she wrestled with death for him. The burden 
of fear and anxiety was an awful one. The physi- 
cians attributed his recovery almost wholly to her 
superhuman efforts and persistent nursing, never 



The Heat and Burden of the Day. 107 

leaving him night or day to any other hand, and 
never relaxing her labor, even when his life was 
wholly despaired of. But the mental conflict was 
most severe. When he slept she drew near to God, 
and, after throes of anguish, of which she afterward 
spoke, but could not describe, she was at last able to 
leave all to her Father in heaven, in submissive con- 
fidence. She rested in Him. After these profound 
conflicts the cloud passed over, and the family were 
united again, unbroken. 

The children were now coming to an age when 
their education became a perplexing question. The 
village where the Seminary had been established had 
been gradually stranded by the advances and changes 
of the times. The stage-coach that ran twice a day 
in 1834, and made the Hill sufficiently accessible, 
in 1850 seemed lumbering and antiquated. The 
new railroads just missed the town ; schools grew 
poorer rather than better. The devices of govern- 
esses and home education, by which the parents had 
so far contrived to shield the children from the de- 
fective public schools, were growing insufficient. 
The way to long training in distant academies was 
not clear. Just then the Trustees of the Seminary 
decided on establishing a classical academy in the 
place, thinking it would somehow prove a valuable 
auxiliary to the institution. For the ten years that 



108 The Heat and Burden of the Day. 

it survived, the school was of a high order. The 
course was thorough, and the teachers persons who 
have won distinction in different departments since. 
President Chadbourne, now of Williams College, 
opened it, and was for some time its principal. 

One of the great anxieties was relieved, and the 
father and mother took up their burdens with lighter 
hearts, and the glad thankfulness with which it had 
always been their habit to receive each event as 
coming directly from God's hand. The opening of 
the school brought a new care, as well as a new re- 
lief; the children of friends came to be in her family, 
while they were fitting for college, which meant that 
she was a mother to them all. Her warm sympathy 
and bright, cheerful spirit drew them to confide in her. 
Her laugh was so merry, they could not think she 
had forgotten what it was to be young; and her over- 
flowing kindness, and sweet, tender pity, when they 
were sick or tired, or " needed brooding," as she used 
to say, drew them all to rest in her. There was no 
one of them all whom she did not try to win to a 
Christian manhood, as it was impossible for her not 
to try to do for every one she knew. 

In 1865 a nephew wrote her: "I wish to learn 
more particularly of your dear household. It was 
a real home to me. It was more, my spiritual birth- 
place, and I shall never cease to recall with deep 



The Heat and Burden of the Day. 109 

emotion the scenes of '55. It would be delightful 
if we could turn the hands on the dial back, not to 
make it traverse these ten years again, but to enjoy 
for a day the reviving of some precious hours gone. 
I do not fancy you much changed, but that sorrow 
has done for you what it has done for us all. What 
a family of boys, besides your own, look back on your 
motherly care and affection, — the Cs., M., N., — you 
must feel so old when you think how many you have 
helped to train. Sometimes when I have been sitting 
a long while talking with chum, that is to say, look- 
ing into the open fire, I wish that I might exchange 
No. 21 for your sitting-room, and my dreamy com- 
panion for your own self. Do you ever sit up late 
nights now, to talk with naughty, but well-meaning 
boys? 

" Believe that I am more than ever a son of your 
heart, which, though it sound sentimental to others, 
is real to me." 

In 1879 the same nephew from Dresden wrote of 
her: "So blessed has been the life of her who has 
gone, so full of helpful sympathy, prayer, and work, 
that I find myself saying constantly, ' Heaven is the 
place for such as she.' I always felt warmly attached 
to Aunt Eliza, as all who came near her as I did, 
have ; but she was so especially associated with the 
feeble beginnings of Christian hope, that this feeling 



1 10 The Heat and Burden of the Day. 

became more tender and sacred than it otherwise 
could have done. Her earnest love beamed through 
her wise counsel, illuminating it and making me in 
love with the truth which I had disliked and shunned. 
How well I remember her gentle pleading and chari- 
table allowance for my weaknesses ! The blessing she 
was to me in helping me to a surrender of the affec- 
tions, and guarding me against the error of mere 
intellectual acceptance of the gospel, was the out- 
come of what she was, a loving Christian woman." 
Another nephew, touching on this same relation, 
writes : " Her loving heart and kindly deeds made 
her lovable, but it seems to me that there was besides 
some rarer gift which must have affected many besides 
myself. Her strength of character was of the kind 
which draws and not repels, and which makes those 
stronger who are reached by it. There was nothing 
which settled my feelings more, after hearing the 
conversation and arguments of an unbeliever, than a 
sight of Aunt Eliza's face and hearing her speak of 
the best things. There is no argument for the truth 
of Christianity like such a life." 

A little essay written by her for a circle of ladies 
who met every fortnight for charitable work, and com- 
bined some literary exercises with it, is interesting, 
because so unconsciously reflecting herself. 



The Heat and Burden of the Day. 1 1 1 



WOMANLY CHARACTER. 

In drawing a character as perfect as human nature 
will allow, two things are necessary : consistency with 
itself, and adaptation to the circumstances in which it is 
placed. The personal attractions of a female are, in 
themselves considered, of little consequence ; they win 
the admiration of the beholder, but, if not connected with 
intelligence and amiability, they soon pall upon the taste 
and lose their power to charm. 

In order to form a consistent character, we must begin 
with that purifying, life-giving principle which alone is the 
foundation of all true excellence, namely, pure religion. 
There may be, and often is, intellectual greatness without 
this, but, where the cultivation of the heart is neglected, 
the character must be incomplete. The human heart is 
naturally devoted to its own interests, and if there is no 
counteracting principle the character will become selfish ; 
and there is no principle sufficiently powerful to stem the 
current of the soul but religion, which manifests itself in 
humility, self-denial, and love to the whole human family. 
The individual we are attempting to describe would con- 
stantly watch over her own heart, would suppress every 
unkind and selfish feeling, would often compare herself 
with the perfect standard of duty, and, while conscious of 
her own imperfections, she would bear with patience the 
frailties of those around her, or, in the words of inspira- 
tion, she would possess the " charity which seeketh not her 
own, thinketh no evil, hopeth all things, believeth all 
things, rejoiceth m the truth." In one word, she does to 
others as she would have others do to her. But if she 
thus assiduously cultivates her heart, she does not neglect 
her understanding ; she considers it a talent committed 



ii2 The Heat and Burden of the Day. 

to her, for which she must give account, — consequently 
she improves her mind, not that she may obtain a reputa- 
tion, but that she may better discharge the duties of her 
station. True female delicacy shrinks from notoriety. 

While she is thus rendering herself an ornament to her 
sex and a blessing to society, she claims no praise for 
herself, but ascribes it to that spirit imparted to her by 
Him who became poor that she might be rich, and laid 
down his life that she might never die. 

Her affections are not supremely attached to the objects 
of this world, but she looks beyond the grave to those 
joys which eye hath not seen nor the heart of man con- 
ceived. While she is happy in the performance of duty 
here, she looks forward with delight to the time when she 
shall refresh her soul from the river of life, in the presence 
of her Redeemer. A character like this is adapted to a 
world of disappointment and sorrow. Her treasure on 
high and her heart there also, she enjoys prosperity with 
moderation, and in affliction she is strengthened by know- 
ing that all things work together for her good. She seeks 
instruction from every dispensation of Providence, and 
thus her soul gains purity and is preparing for the society 
of the blest spirits in another world. 

May this character be ours ! 

By her strong grasp of certain principles of living 
and her sincerity in acting upon them, she solved 
practically more than one problem on which volumes 
have been written to no great purpose. 

The problem of domestic service was perplexing 
to her as to all American housekeepers, but she met 
it with patience and courage. From the first she 






The Heat and Burden of the Day. 1 1 3 

treated her domestics with consideration and kind- 
ness. In the very early years of her housekeeping 
the question " What shall we do with our kitchens? " 
presented itself in a rather startling way. The in- 
cumbent was a young woman who had never seemed 
very strong, but showed nothing unusual in any way, 
until one morning the mistress appeared at the usual 
time, to find the fire unmade and no signs of Amanda. 
She hastily called her, while she herself prepared 
breakfast, expecting the girl's step on the stair every 
moment. At last she went to her room and found 
her still asleep. No effort to arouse her had any 
effect, the stupor was so absolute. She went down 
to care for the family, puzzled, but supposing she 
would wake of herself soon. The girl did not appear 
until nearly noon, mortified and unable to explain the 
cause of the prolonged sleep. After that she would 
frequently fall into the same state in the daytime, and 
while in it could do what was impossible when in her 
ordinary condition. Her eyes would remain tightly 
closed, and while so she could read fluently, when at 
other times she blundered and stumbled and could 
scarcely get through a simple verse. 

Other persons became interested in the case, and 
on one occasion Dr. Tyler came in, and himself tied his 
large red-silk handkerchief, thickly folded, over her 
eyes, while they were tightly closed ; then, holding a 



1 1 4 The Heat and Burden of the Day, 

Bible before her upside down, opened to an unfa- 
miliar passage in the Old Testament and asked her 
to read, which she did correctly, and equally well 
when it was held behind her. 

It was more interesting scientifically than practi- 
cally; but the mistress pitied the maid, connected as 
the phenomenon was with failing health, and bore 
with the inconvenience for months, until at last rela- 
tives were found to care for her. Whoever she 
employed soon felt her to be a friend. She inquired 
into the condition of their clothing, and, usually find- 
ing them poorly provided for, helped them plan, 
often cutting out garments with her own hands, over- 
whelmed with cares as she was, not resting till they 
were comfortable. 

One Bridget, celebrated in the family annals for 
uncommon impertinence and unskilfulness, was the 
trial of her soul for eleven years. Having decided 
that she was as competent as any one that could 
be obtained, she concluded to bear what could not be 
cured ; endured her unreasonableness, advised and 
taught her as far as possible, insisting on her laying 
by part of her wages every month, and then, when 
her uncommon wealth began to attract lovers whom 
her personal charms would hardly have won, my 
mother spent many an hour in counteracting the 
wooing of young men who drank and would have 



The Heat and Burden of the Day. 1 1 5 

made poor Bridget miserable. We used to think it 
a rather wasted effort then, not seeing how ideally 
beautiful and right it all was, and how she had struck 
the key in which it is now found all real labor-reform 
must be set, before employers and employed can be 
harmonious. By self-sacrifice and kindness she saved 
the ignorant creature as far as lay in her power, and 
was really in the end better served than those who take 
fire at each provocation and think of the employed 
only as troublesome parts of the machinery. 

Her spirit of helpfulness was well illustrated by her 
course in regard to singing. She was thirty eight 
or nine years old, and had never been trained in 
music, when a movement was made to organize a 
chorus choir for the Seminary chapel. It was urged 
that every one who ever sang at all should unite, and 
help as far as possible. That, she thought, included 
her, and, knowing very well how small a musical 
talent she had, she attended the training-school regu- 
larly, joined the choir, and sang so evidently with the 
spirit that no one could suspect her of an exaggerated 
idea of her own gifts. 

New tests of character and strains on faith and 
feeling were constantly coming in these busy years. 
The boys and girls, who were babies only the other 
day, were grown and ready for college and boarding- 
school. Any change that took one of her children 



1 1 6 The Heat and Burden of the Day. 

from her immediate care was to her a great one. It 
was with prayers and tears she parted from her 
sons one after the other. " I shall never forget," she 
wrote once to the oldest, " how I felt when you first 
put on boy's clothes. It was the beginning of your 
growing up." This was another step. But with 
what letters she followed them, what boxes at Thanks- 
giving, if they could not come home, what welcomes 
for vacations ! 

It would be as easy to analyze the flowers in 
one's wedding bouquet as to tell precisely what she 
did and said that made her such a mother. In her 
excellent judgment there was a sense of strength and 
wisdom to guide, and her deep, warm love was an un- 
failing refuge. One says " Mother," and stops as we 
say " God," not able to explain, but aware of Him 
under and around and everywhere. 

One of the pleasant occasions, after cares began to 
lessen a little, and there was time for backward 
glances, was the silver wedding, which was celebrated 
by a family gathering in the fall of 1859. At that 
time she wrote the following letter to her children : — 

My beloved Children, — Yesterday was the anni- 
versary of the day when we were planted among the 
families of the earth, and, as it also completes the first 
quarter of a century, it seems desirable to record the deal- 
ings of God with us as a family. 



The Heat and Burden of the Day. 117 

One of the first resolutions formed after my face was 
turned Zionward was, never to allow myself to become 
interested in any one not a Christian, or to whom I could 
not look up with respect. That, under existing circum- 
stances, was nearly equivalent to a resolution to live a 
single life. When our union was formed, the prospect as 
regarded worldly matters, was one of privation and self- 
denial ; a friend, on hearing the amount of salary expected, 
said to me, " That would not buy my pins." " I know it," 
I replied; "but it will probably support me." We took 
this word for our heritage, " Trust in the Lord and do 
good ; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou 
shalt be fed." God has made good his promise. As a 
family, we have never wanted any good thing. We have 
always had enough for ourselves and a morsel for those 
that were needy. In that dark hour when death seemed 
standing just outside the door, and I was forced to look 
widowhood, orphanage, and poverty in the face, this cov- 
enant promise of a covenant-keeping God was a strong 
tower ; by grace I ran into it, and was safe. It did not 
include the luxuries of life, — things, in our view, incon- 
sistent with the self-denying spirit of pilgrims and stran- 
gers, — and therefore we adopted as plain and simple a 
style of living as was consistent with health and respecta- 
bility. You can testify that I have not spared myself 
when personal effort was needed. Amid all the trials and 
vicissitudes of family life, never, for one moment, have I 
regretted the step taken, neither have I found uncalled 
for the sober views with which we took it. With me it 
was second only to consecration to the service of Christ. 
God only knows the number and the strength of the trials 
and temptations which awaited us, but out of them all he 
hath delivered us, and made us thankfully acknowledge 
that they were the needed discipline. 



1 1 8 The Heat and Burden of the Day. 

Time has not weakened our mutual attachment: it is 
stronger and more perfect to-day than at any former 
period. 

We received you as precious gifts from our Heavenly 
Father, intrusted to our care, — not wholly ours, but to be 
trained for his service and subject to his call. We felt 
his command imperative to bring you up in his fear and 
teach you his precepts. You are consecrated to his 
service ; the world has no claim upon you. You under- 
stand in what sense I use that term "the world." In 
another sense it has the strongest claim. It demands 
that your influence shall be like salt thrown into the 
turbid waters, purifying and sanctifying. It has been my 
desire to train you to feel that there is no object worth 
living for but the glory of God and the good of others. 

This has not presented itself to me in the light of a self- 
denying duty, but as a high privilege ; and if Christ should 
condescend to use you in his service I would say : " It is 
enough ; now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace." 

From this standpoint I look back upon so many mis- 
takes of judgment, so many imperfections and short- 
comings, such weakness of faith, such risings of rebellion, 
such ebullitions of selfishness and pride in my heart and 
life, that I am constrained to say, if there is any good 
thing in any of us, it is all of sovereign grace. God has 
taught us that the power to control human spirits is pecu- 
liarly his own. Often when my purposes in this respect 
were crossed, and I have been driven in despair to seek 
the aid of Almighty power, he has appeared for my help 
and wrought deliverance. Let us recall the mercy of the 
Lord in healing our sicknesses, in preserving our going 
out and our coming in, and that there is no dishonored 
name in our household. 



The Heat and Burden of the Day. 1 1 9 

Take courage for the future, review your principles and 
motives, and renew your consecration to Christ. Let no 
inducement of present comfort or worldly gain turn you 
aside from the position of greatest usefulness. 

Watch jealously the golden chain of fraternal love. 
Cheerfully make any personal sacrifice rather than suffer 
it to be tarnished. I have no fear that your filial love will 
fail. The history of the next twenty-five years is in the 
mind of our glorious Head. Let us commit ourselves to 
Him, in the sure and certain hope that all will be well. 

Your loving Mother. 

These words of trust had not been many years 
written when the storm of war burst over the coun- 
try, convulsing, shattering, sweeping away so much. 
Like all true women of that time, my mother threw 
her intense feeling into the form of active service, — a 
leader in her own circle in the movement for sending- 
hospital supplies and comforts to the soldiers on the 
field. She would turn, with the tears still wet on her 
cheeks from reading the accounts of battles, to cut 
out havelocks and sew bandages. But it was to 
come nearer. In August, 1862, her youngest son, 
Samuel, enlisted. He had finished his studies at 
Phillips Academy in July, and was about to enter 
Yale. He was only nineteen, just in the beauty of 
his youth and the opening of a manhood that prom- 
ised all which a mother's heart dreams. 

It was such a knightly act as his whole training and 



1 20 The Heat and Burden of the Day. 

her own spirit had helped prepare him for. When 
the grave words, " I think I ought to go," fell from 
his lips, that had grown ten years older that summer, 
she could not oppose him, but the quietness came 
that always fell on her when the depths were stirred. 
She worked and smiled, but said little. " To suffer 
and be strong " was the part of women in those 
terrible days. 

Her face grew white as the time came nearer when 
he must go, but she mostly hid her tears, turning her 
sweet face, a centre of calm, on the surging sea of 
family excitement around her. In her heart hope 
was strong that he might come back, not knowing 
that his clear eyes saw through to the end. " I knew 
how it would be when I enlisted," he told her when 
he lay dying. 

It was soon all over. A few weeks' marching and 
bivouacking, hunger and thirst and the scorching 
southern sun, did their work on his frame, nobly 
moulded, but too finely organized to bear such strains. 
There was the one awful day of Antietam, one flash- 
ing out of the pent-up passion and fire of which he- 
roes are made, — a story to tell to children's children, 
of how he sprang to his dead captain's place, shout- 
ing, " Form on me, boys, form on me ! " leading his 
men and rallying the scattered regiment ; how, in the 
horror of the confused rout, he helped a wounded 



The Heat and Burden of the Day. 121 

comrade from the field, crossing and recrossing the 
bridge in the full face of the enemy's fire, yet carry- 
ing still his overcoat cape on his arm, that the women 
who loved him might be spared every pang that he 
could spare them ; how, when night fell, he dragged 
himself fainting to the woods, able to do no more 
than remember to draw that covering over him, 
while the darkness closed in and the rain fell, and 
for him the short, sharp battle of life was done. 

Six weeks from the day that he marched down the 
Hartford street with the Sixteenth on their way to 
Virginia, he lay wrapped in the flag, under his laurel 
crown, with the white lily on his breast, in the home 
whose light and pride he had been. 

Almost his last words were to his mother, as she 
bent over him, trying to soothe his mortal weariness. 
" Kiss me, mother: I am going before long." "I 
shall follow you soon, my son," said she, as if from a 
heart breaking with an anguish it could not bear. 

That was the going down of the sun (to more 
than one life), the beginning of ever-lengthening 
shadows. The mother bore the great shock bravely, 
but, always after, her heart was divided. While she 
clung no less to those who stayed, she was always 
longing to go to him who would not return to her. 

" I was surprised," said a friend who spoke to her of 
him sixteen years after he went, " to see the tears spring 



1 2 2 The Heat and Burden of the Day. 

to her eyes, so that she could hardly speak. Her 
ordinary cheerful manner had not prepared me for 
this." The fruits of her sorrow were " peaceable," 
but the absent was unforgotten. 

Not long after Samuel's death, her oldest son, 
Charles, went abroad to study the German methods 
in schools of technology, preparatory to assuming 
the charge of the one about to be established in 
Worcester, Mass. She was thoroughly interested in 
his object, but her wound was still too fresh for her 
to think, without the most tremulous yearning, of the 
risks of travel and distance. It was one more added 
to those experiences of watching, waiting, and prayer 
without ceasing, that make up the mother's life. 

One by one, the children married. She received 
each new son and daughter, as they came into the 
family, with a warm affection that never ceased to 
bless them with the belief that they were really taken 
into her heart and held as her own. 

In the fall of 1869 the wedding of the youngest 
daughter gathered friends and kin together for the 
last time under the roof of the Windsor home. It 
was not without significance that when the rooms 
were dressed that last time with wreaths and branches 
for the festival, it was under an arch of bittersweet 
that all passed outward. There had been laughter 
and tears, fear and hope, in the home which the two 



The Heat and Burden of the Day. 123 

who loved God and each other had begun thirty 
years before. The young girl who had come with 
that serious sweetness in her eyes, confiding and cour- 
ageous, had ripened, through sunshine and shower, 
into the matron whose presence there and every- 
where was a benediction. She had been strong as 
a wife to share a difficult lot, and to the children so 
wise and tender and true that the halo which crowns 
unselfish lives was visibly surrounding her. There 
was no unmingled bitterness in the pathos of the last 
song, the wedding-song that closed the drama lived 
out in that house. Its varying harmonies had con- 
stantly returned to the chord of faith on which they 
were built up. She had so steadily looked at the 
things which are unseen, she could not be shaken 
beyond recovery by any change that touched only 
the external. 

The Seminary had been removed three years be- 
fore to Hartford, and now there seemed no reason for 
any longer retaining the house at Windsor, even for a 
summer home. Only women tenacious of local asso- 
ciations, who know what it is to weave their very 
heart-life into the homes in which they come as 
brides, where their children have been born and 
reared, where they have watched over their sick and 
buried their dead, can understand what it cost her, at 
her age, to break those ties. She shrank from it, 



124 The Heat mid Burden of the Day. 

and for a while opposed it, but, convinced that it was 
best, she conquered herself once more, and with a 
composure marvellous to those who knew what she 
felt, she yielded and prepared for the breaking up. 

In two weeks from the wedding-day the house was 
empty. Many of the bulbs and flowers she had 
loved so much she scattered among her friends and 
children, and the sweetest lilies and roses in gardens 
widely separated to-day are reminders of her. 

" There 's rosemary, that 's for remembrance ; pray 
you, love, remember; and there is pansies, that's for 
thoughts." 






CHAPTER IV. 

THE EVENING TIME. 



IV. 

THE EVENING TIME. 

" What still is left of strength employ 
This end to help attain, 
One common wave of thought and joy 
Lifting mankind again." 

"Blessed is that servant tuhom his Lord 
when he cometh shall find so doing." 

r I ^HERE is no closer test of character than what 
-*- one chooses to do when he is free to choose. 
Many women coming out of a somewhat aimless 
girlhood into matronly cares drift into a generally 
right course. The very stress of circumstance forces 
them into a kind of faithfulness to duty. Natural 
instinct and ordinary conscience dictate a degree of 
devotion to those most nearly dependent on them 
for happiness. When the children are grown and 
the pressure lifted, a certain propriety in caps, and a 
judicious vibration between knitting, crocheting, and 
the Kensington stitch in buttercups, are felt to be all 
the world has a right to demand of them. Occasional 



128 The Evening Time. 

mild concessions to the urgencies of charitable 
collectors, or the rare sending around of the carriage 
to take church invalids to ride, leaves in their 
minds a savor of unusual rectitude, as of voluntary 
service on the part of discharged soldiers. 

With Mrs. Thompson, life at twenty had individual 
purpose and genuine consecration. The lesson of 
the last fourteen years is only that she 

" Obeyed the voice at eve 
She had obeyed at prime." 

The era of household care was past. In the hotel 
and boarding-house her time was her own, but as a 
neighbor remarked, " There was not a busier woman 
in Hartford than Mrs. Thompson." 

It had never been her way to endure life, but to 
conquer it by her faith in special Providence, and 
her whole-souled choice to serve rather than be 
served. It was so, still. 

The round of action in the restricted circle of 
home, exacting and intense as it had been, had not 
narrowed her sympathies. In her busiest days she 
had still thought; she had observed and reflected. 
In her love for her own she had not absorbed all 
her capacity for loving. As the history of families 
and individuals had passed before her, it had been 
more than food for passing remark. She had traced 
results back to causes, effects to governing principles ; 



The Evening Time. 129 

so that it was not only with ripened experience, 
but intelligent moral convictions and unwithered 
ardor, that she came to " Life's late afternoon." 

She was scarcely established in Hartford before 
she was known as one whose advice as well as labor 
was of value in the different departments of church 
work. It was not that ease had no charm for her, 
but usefulness had more. She rose above the lesser 
into the greater good. 

By some mysterious magnetism the poor and she 
came into communication. Rickety attic-stairs which 
she could justly have excused herself from climbing 
on account of her increasing stoutness and the weak- 
ness of her ankles, knew her step well. 

She abhorred waste, and in the breaking up of 
the old home she had saved material which could 
be made into useful garments, but which, given away 
as it was, would be of little value, it not being 
probable that poor women would have either time 
or skill to expend in that way. There was the very 
soul of Christianity in the way those buttonholes 
on the little children's quilts were worked, when they 
had been warmly wadded, the mist gathering in her 
kind eyes while she said to herself, there would be 
at least two or three little girls who would not be 
very cold that winter. There was a thoroughness 
in her way of doing good that marked it as springing 

9 



1 30 The Evening Time. 

from a source quite different from that which prompts 
the careless turning over of superfluities to the poor, 
with a vague belief that even that ought to be set 
down as very much to one's credit. With the great 
ocean of suffering and want around us, she felt that 
the least a Christian woman could do was to give 
not only things but herself. Doing the most possible, 
she felt to be only following afar off in the steps of 
our Master. Into the organization of the Woman's 
Christian Association she threw herself heartily. 
One of their first efforts was the building of the 
Church Street Home for Working-Girls. She worked 
untiringly as a manager, and in the superintendence 
of the means for religious culture, thoroughly be- 
lieving that the deepest sources of happiness lie in 
faith and the acquaintance of the soul with Jesus 
Christ, and that only half the work of kindness is 
done when physical wants are met. She knew too 
well what a woman's life is, to suppose it can be fed 
by bread alone. 

She was zealous in making pretty articles for the 
fairs held to free the Home from debt. When she 
was taking her summer rest by the sea-shore or 
among the mountains, a bit of embroidery designed 
for the winter sale would be in progress at odd 
moments, or arrangements of shells and mosses for 
the same purpose. When her eyes were too tired 



The Evening Time. 131 

for either, there was knitting ; for there would surely 
be a demand at the sale-tables for her children's 
mittens. Meanwhile nothing beautiful on sea or 
shore escaped her eye, and nothing rare or inter- 
esting as a specimen. A lace cap she held as 
a necessary inconvenience ; a bit of sea-corn was a 
treasure. Her love of shells amounted to a passion, 
if any thing amounted to that in her well-balanced, 
even nature. She delighted in collecting them and 
in every thing concerning their history, imparting 
her own enthusiasm to her grandchildren, who were 
never tired of seeing her press the mosses, and of 
helping her collect all the odd things the sea tossed 
up. They found the greatest pleasure in their 
bathing and their swimming-lesson, if grandma were 
in the company, for no one else was quite so merry, 
or entered into it all with such a zest. 

Indeed, her relation to her grandchildren was so 
beautiful as to quite give the lie to the writers who 
tell us we must go to French chateaux or English 
homes to find specimens of the real grandmothers, 
who used to form so lovely a part of the family 
picture. 

She took each one into her heart as they came 
to the different homes. She overflowed with anxious 
sympathies for every ailment of their infancy, shaping 
the little socks for their feet with the same care and 



132 



The Evening Time. 



interest with which she wrote quarterly reports or 
prepared addresses for benevolent societies. She 
lingered over the bits of white and blue with the 
fond smile of her own young motherhood, and 
recalled the old skill in embroidery when she was 
past sixty, that what she had wrought might be 
among the first dresses worn by a grandchild. 

Her life must have been a puzzle to the persons 
who cannot conceive of woman's activity in organized 
form, the conservatism of her immense reserved force 
of sympathy and wisdom, without some sad sacrifice 
of the more primal and intimate ties that depend on 
womanly tenderness. 

She had too ample a nature and too genuine, ever 
to dream that any thing can be more important than 
what concerns the comfort and good of children. 
She felt a certain fine indignation toward the very 
hint in theory or practice. Had her instinct not 
sufficed, she was able, by one or two direct strokes 
of her sound sense, to cut a knot that needed no 
unravelling. Her arguments on points in regard to 
which she was fully informed were apt to be con- 
clusive. 

The most irritable egotist, intent on asserting the 
comparative expanse of his own nature by curtailing 
the possible stretch of others, would have felt no 
alarm as to the traditional feminine traits of this 



The Evening Time. 133 

woman, if he had seen her, the fair face tinged with 
the pink color that had never forgotten how to come 
and go, surrounded by her group of grandchildren. 
They clung to her, confiding their little plans and 
thoughts, as sure of her symp'athy as of the package 
of stockings and mittens that came every Christmas, 
knit by her own hand. 

One of her last visits she made at Worcester, the 
home of her oldest son ; the children first spied the 
carriage that brought her, and before the parents 
knew what was in progress, she had been triumphantly 
seized and conducted to the playroom in the third 
story, where she was shortly after found, with hat 
and travelling wraps still on, listening, all smiles and 
attention, to the boys' eager explanations of their 
minerals and shells. 

Under all, there was her characteristic earnestness 
and deep conviction of what was more than passing 
joy. She studied the characteristics of each one, 
trying to strengthen them where they were weak, 
and fix the awful must of duty below the tides of 
feeling. " I want to get a hold upon them," she 
used to say; " then what I say will have some in- 
fluence." The precepts of a grandmother who made 
them shell necklaces, cared about all their games, 
and had such kisses for them all, sank into their very 
souls. 



134 



The Evening Time. 



Whatever happened in the four homes of her chil- 
dren, — at Worcester, Reading, Fitchburg, or Middle- 
town, — to write to mother about it was the first 
impulse. Whether it was joy or sorrow, they were sure 
of her sympathy, and in perplexity her advice was felt 
to be a light. When nothing happened they knew that 
simply to be informed of the daily current of their 
lives was part of her happiness, and when mother's 
prayers could be enlisted in behalf of any individual 
or object for which they were working, they knew 
the strongest available force had been brought into 
play. Her visits were a west-wind of cheerfulness 
blowing over weariness and care. Every thing felt 
steadier, simpler, and surer when she was in the 
house. Tangles began to clear up. Whether it 
was the fresh thought she brought down-stairs from 
her morning Bible reading, — a tonic for the spiritual 
life of the day, — or the thimble and scissors that in 
spite of all protests insisted on being felt where they 
were needed, or the little package of flower-seeds 
for the garden, or the receipt for pickles produced 
from the portfolio where it was lying in peaceful 
proximity to the memoranda of the Constantinople 
Home, or whether it was the sight of the lovely face 
asleep in the arm-chair after dinner, — altogether, 
sunshine came with her. It could not seem an 
unmixed misfortune to be born into the world where 
she was. 



The Evening Time. 135 

As always, the circle of blessing spread out from 
the single home, and her children's friends came to 
value acquaintance with the mother as something 
to be treasured. 

A lady who knew her in this way writes : " Your 
mother's sweet voice and manners drew me to her, 
and it was easy to talk freely with her of precious 
interests. I was made better by knowing her. She 
did good in such a simple, genuine way, no one 
could know her without being stimulated to a broader 
life." 

After the civil war was ended, and the great 
question of African slavery settled in this country, 
there were prophetic souls who felt that the next 
problem that would occupy us and be slowly solved, 
was that of the training and the sphere of women. 
Events have proved that they were right. The 
vastness and the complications of the problem have 
become more manifest with each new theory and 
test, until the wisest admit it to be capable of solu- 
tion only by experiment. Happily, in our free 
atmosphere and in our general system, itself an 
experiment, this is possible. Looking back seventeen 
years, the least sanguine progress that inspires fresh 
patience; the improvement in physical training, 
already visibly telling in larger cities ; the hundred 
new avenues of industry for women where there 



1 36 The Evening 1 ime. 

was one then ; Vassar and Smith and Wellesley where 
then there was only the unctuous speculator of the 
boarding-school; the unnumbered societies for self- 
improvement where the best women of communities 
gather to study and consider questions in social 
science, as well in Kansas and Illinois as in New 
York and Massachusetts, — all these tangible proofs 
of advance, and others, in spite of what is undone, it 
seems, might stir the silent sleeper in the-Haworth 
churchyard with a thrill of joy, or her whose grave 
in Florence is to many a pilgrim one of its holiest 
shrines. Truth and time are strong enough to out- 
wear all prisons. 

The new structure of womanly life was to be like 
the universal Church, " fitly framed together by that 
which every joint supplieth." Each need not com- 
prehend the whole. Each may dream that his own 
little arch spans the building, but as many as follow 
where they are led by the Spirit, must surely find 
their work at last built into the great cathedral 
existing in completeness now only in the mind of 
God. 

To the majority of refined and conservative women, 
the first strokes on this new building sounded as 
those that form a log hut, a barbaric framework, 
with which they scorned to have^any thing to do; 
but before they were aware, and not knowing what 



The Evening Time. 137 

they did, the spreading, subtle impulse drew them 
on, and women in the churches, to whom responsi- 
bility and opportunity were one, began to ask them- 
selves if there was no more which they could do 
for women in heathen countries than to read the 
" Missionary Herald," and favor the regular contri- 
butions of their husbands to the Missionary Boards. 
The spirit which moved Mehetible Kneeland sixty- 
seven years before, when she went to her room to write 
" One cent where millions are needed," revived 
again in Boston, as all good spirits, however hindered, 
do revive, and in 1869 a new Woman's Board of 
Foreign Missions was organized. 

The movement slowly spread throughout New 
England and the West, not without persistent labor 
on the part of the earnest spirits inspired to push 
it on. One of those spirits Mrs. Thompson was. 
She added devotion to this work to her activity in 
other directions, and was made president of the 
Hartford Branch of the society. Her official duties 
embraced not only care of the regular meetings, of 
subscriptions in Hartford, the attendance on the 
annual meeting in Boston, but the organization of 
auxiliary societies through the county, correspond- 
ence with missionaries, and all those incidental cares 
which fall to one known to be interested in such an 
obiect. 



138 The Evening Time. 

If any one had said to my mother in 1865 that she 
would ever address public meetings, or preside over 
large bodies assembled to deliberate on any sub- 
ject, she would have needed no further proof of 
his insanity. She had never been able to summon 
courage to announce in her own parlor, that the 
next meeting of the sewing-society would be held 
at Mrs. John Smith's, but, after fruitless efforts to 
raise her voice sufficiently, had always ended in going 
privately to each lady in the room to mention the 
appointment. 

That, at her age, powers so absolutely dormant 
should suddenly develop, was a study of great in- 
terest to her friends. Some one has said that any 
woman who could rule a household well could 
manage a kingdom. In her case, experience in 
care-taking, with her clear, composed, definite habit 
of mind, was found to adapt her unusually to the 
duties of a presiding officer, while her ardent piety 
diffused itself like leaven through the assembly. " I 
could always feel," said one, " when Mrs. Thompson 
led in prayer, that the spiritual plane of a meeting 
was raised." Once having conquered her shrinking, 
she found her voice could be distinctly heard in any 
part of any room where she tried to use it. Pushed 
on, step by step, by the pressure of evident duty, 
she found herself praying and speaking in crowded 



The Evening Time. 1 39 

churches, with as much ease as she felt in gliding 
through the ball-room in the days of her girlhood. 
" If she had not spoken," some one said, " it would 
have been-a blessing to have her lovely face to look 
at as she sat on the platform ; " but when she rose, 
with the dignity that comes from self-forgetfulness and 
absorption in a great thought, to plead the cause 
of suffering women in Turkey, or India, grounding 
every appeal on some solid principle, there was felt 
to be in her, force as well as sweetness. That unusual 
knowledge of the Bible which she had gained by 
life-long study, was singularly telling. It had a sort 
of vitality, tested as it had been by the successive 
steps of her practical life, seeming from her lips 
something tangible, as a ship's compass or a harbor 
light. To an age in whose vacillations and perplex- 
ities of religious thought it was not her part to share, 
she offered that most precious of all helps, the solid 
fact of a genuine Christlike life, consciously built 
up on confidence in Him. 

It was said by one who met her only at these 
missionary meetings, " There was a motherliness 
about her; you felt you could give her your confi- 
dence, and it would not be misplaced ; " and it was not 
uncommon for one to whisper to another as she passed 
up the aisle, " If there was ever a good woman it is 
she." After her work was done, one who had worked 



140 The Evening Time. 

with her wrote : " She was a tower of strength, both 
in the Branch of which she was president, and in the 
Board at Boston. She was wise and judicious in 
counsel, true in friendship, equal to an emergency, 
and breathing so naturally the spirit of prayer that 
she carried all hearts with her very near the throne. 
There was a warm-hearted sincerity in her that made 
friends of all. Who that attended the meeting of 
the American Board in Hartford can forget her 
warm welcome, her large hospitality? Yet she found 
the time amid all her cares to do helpful things for 
others." 

In the establishment of the school for girls at 
Constantinople she felt an intense interest, and raised 
large sums for it by the most untiring personal effort. 
It is perhaps the most definite memorial of her 
missionary work. In one of its rooms her picture 
hangs, and a missionary teacher writes of the girls 
going up to it and saying, " To look at her helps me 
to be good." In correspondence with Miss Stark- 
weather, Miss Strong, and other missionaries sent 
out by the Woman's Board, she opened the treasures 
of her Christian experience and made her own 
strength a strength to them. In the " Life and 
Light" for February, 1879, a letter from Miss Strong, 
missionary in Mexico, records an incident, — one 
probably of many that are unrecorded : — 



The Evening Time. .141 

" It was a time of great depression in the mission 
at M. Death had taken away some of the most 
efficient native helpers. At last one of the only two 
remaining missionaries was stricken down with the 
epidemic. The disease had spent its force, but it 
seemed doubtful whether the frail body would rally. 
How desolate and afflicted we were within those 
lonely walls ! The days passed wearily on in my 
weakness in an upper room, for I too was prostrated, 
under the care of a native woman and her daughter. 
Well I remember the sad days, the intense anxiety 
that the missionary whose burdens had been so heavy 
in the burial of the dead and the relief of the sick, 
when outside help and sympathy from the foreigners 
were repelled because of contagion, might be spared, 
and the little band of praying ones might not be 
bereft of their teacher. 

" As I lay on my couch, growing feverish and rest- 
less over my perplexing thoughts, suddenly a strange 
calm came over me. I felt as if I were a little child 
again, and had been soothed and hushed to rest in 
my mother's arms. Just then my friend came in to 
inquire how I was, fearing to hear the same sad 
answer heard so often before. But to-day I said joy- 
fully, ' I am better, decidedly better ! I think I shall 
get well. The strangest feeling has come over me the 
last hour, as if I had new life. I don't understand 



142 The Evening Time. 

it,' and soon added, ' I believe I know what it is. I 
am sure some one is praying for me. I think I will 
try to prove it. I asked my nurse to bring me my 
1 Daily Food,' and, turning to the day of the month, 
I marked it, saying to myself, ' I may hear about 
this day in another place.' From that hour, inspired 
by new courage, I began to recover, and was soon 
able to resume my duties. Weeks passed by, and 
I had almost forgotten the incident, when one day 
I received a letter from a friend, in which was the 
following sentence : ' In January I attended the meet- 
ing of the Woman's Board in Pilgrim Hall, Boston, 
and I wish you could have heard the earnest prayers 
offered for you, especially by Mrs. Thompson, Presi- 
dent of the Hartford Branch.' I compared the date 
with the one in my ' Daily Food,' and the coinci- 
dence was complete." 

Among my mother's papers there is an essay on 
the history of missions in India, closing thus : " The 
question is asked, Why were Avomen sent at this 
juncture? Simply because the work could not be 
done without them. They were not only ready to 
go, but cheerfully laid themselves on the altar, and 
never regretted the sacrifice. What would the Pil- 
grim fathers have been without the Pilgrim mothers? 
Their patient endurance, their unwavering faith, sus- 
tained the courage of the men, who emulated their 



The Evening Time. 143 

bravery. Woman was made a helpmeet for man. 
Death is ever busy thinning the ranks of missionary 
workers, but the reserves come promptly forward to 
fill the gaps. Many of us may live to see the day 
when India shall be a Christian nation, shedding light 
on that dark continent. When China and Japan fall 
into line, then will be our time to sing our hallelujah. 
Shall we not vie with each other in obeying the 
dying command of our Lord, and in blessing others, 
receive a rich reward ourselves? This is God's way. 
' The Lord turned the captivity of Job when he 
prayed for his friends.' " 

She felt strongly in regard to the harmony between 
home and foreign missionary work. Practically, in 
going through the county to establish foreign mis- 
sionary societies, she found that the women most 
ready to enter into the work were those already most 
engaged in caring for our own frontier. At the last 
meeting she attended, in January, 1879, and in her 
last public address, she spoke on this subject, saying 
there was no conflict between the two, and, while 
upholding enthusiastically the home work, insisted 
that more intelligent knowledge of the foreign field 
was the great thing needed, and that our work abroad 
must not be left to suffer. 

No woman in Hartford was more untiring in the 
preparation of home-missionary boxes, or more quick 



144 The Evening Time. 

to respond to special calls from the West for help, 
or to spend long afternoons in the extra service of 
sewing and arranging, that comes to a few after such 
boxes are nearly ready. One who was associated 
with her in these ways said, when she had gone, " We 
so enjoyed those afternoons. We shall miss Mrs. 
Thompson's laugh as much as her prayers ; " and 
another, who was of a despondent, questioning turn, 
said, " How shall we live without her? She had the 
most childlike soul I ever knew." 

One more great sorrow was to fall before the time 
of her own release. In 1868, just after the ordina- 
tion of her second son, William, my mother had 
written as follows in " The Waif," a family letter which 
circulated weekly among her children : " September 
will henceforth be to us the beginning of months. 
Perhaps no one of the events that mark that period 
[referring to its being the month of her own and her 
two daughters' wedding-days, of the birthday of the 
oldest son, and of the fatal battle of Antietam], is 
of more vital importance than the one just passed, 
the setting apart of the son and brother to be an 
ambassador of Christ. The mother's thoughts re- 
verted to the days of childhood, the early conse- 
cration, that terrible illness and reprieve from death, 
the alternate hopes and fears, through early youth 
the constant effort to train you to the service of 



The Evening Time. 145 

Christ, his gracious acceptance, sealed at last, as it 
seemed to me, by that solemn service." 

She had a peculiar satisfaction in his work as well 
as in his character. From his boyhood he had 
been one concerning whom friends involuntarily said, 
" Blessed are. the pure in heart," — a thoroughly true, 
chivalrous, noble soul; but, with much good work 
done, and more just opening before him, he fell 
suddenly ill on his return from a summer vacation, 
and died on the 17th of September, 1876, at his 
home in Reading, Mass. 

She had known once before the withering of 
hopes, the sudden going down of the sun before the 
morning dew was dry ; but this blighting of promise 
fell with a heavy chill. It was not only all she 
hoped to see him accomplish that had faded away, 
but, as they felt themselves turning to go down the 
slope, the parents found their hearts more and more 
leaning on him. He had the steadfast, unfailing con- 
siderateness, united with his sterling qualities, to make 
him a son to comfort one's old age. 

She was with him to the last, catching his dying 
words of assured faith and his heavenly smile, as he 
had glimpses of what was just before. " My precious 
mother," she would hear him whisper, as his eye 
followed her here and there in the room. A few 
days after he went, one of the family said, smiling 

10 



146 The Evening Time. 

through her tears, " Mother, there will never be a 
time for you to go. We cannot live without you, 
and we certainly cannot die without you." But 
another said when she had gone out, seeing how she 
shook under this last blow, " I hope she need not 
have this to go through again. I hope no more of 
us will be taken till she is at rest," and that prayer 
was heard. 

She did not allow her grief to hinder her entering 
with a peaceful delight into a long-anticipated fes- 
tival, the celebration on the 17th of the following 
February, of her husband's seventieth birthday. The 
gathering, an entire surprise to him, was held at the 
home of his only remaining brother, Dr. Augustus 
C. Thompson, of Boston Highlands. He had been 
one of the happy group who welcomed the same 
brother when he brought his young wife home to 
them forty years before, and had been much in the 
home by the Seminary in those days, marrying 
Elizabeth Strong, Eliza Butler's old Northampton 
friend, whom he now brought for a while to Windsor. 
The gathering was full of memories as well as of 
rejoicing. One of these two sisters, of whom my 
mother had written long ago, " The tie of blood 
could not have made them nearer," had married 
Eleazar Lord, a merchant of New York. Her beau- 
tiful home on the Hudson became associated, as time 



The Evening Time. 147 

went on, with some of the choicest hours of rest and 
refreshment in my mother's busy years. Watching 
the white sails go by on the Tappan Zee, strolling 
in the cedar groves, gathering bittersweet, and 
breathing in all the exquisite charm of that land- 
scape, she took breath there for fresh toil. With 
equal readiness she had responded to the summons 
that called her to the same home in times of sickness 
and sorrow, smoothing the dying pillow of the niece 
to whom in her school-days she had rejoiced to give 
a mother's care ; sharing the anxiety that came with 
Mr. Lord's slow decline and death, and at last, in the 
closing scene, when the sister went through a bap- 
tism of fire to rejoin the husband and child. All 
these sorrowful changes, as well as those in her own 
home, and the others of the group, became vivid 
when the kindred that remained gathered to wish 
joy to the one who had come to seventy years. Yet 
it was a happy day. To see him she loved best 
surrounded by loving appreciation, was enough to 
call out her sweetest smile of content. 

That company had hardly scattered before the 
sudden removal of her daughter Elizabeth to Kansas 
was a fresh strain on her love and faith. While Mr. 
Spring's pastorate was in Fitchburg, that home, like 
the others, was within a few hours' journey of Hart- 
ford, but Kansas seemed far away. The separation 



148 The Evening Time. 

was peculiarly trying, coming to her while the wound 
of William's death was still fresh, and those that 
remained instinctively clung closer together. They 
all knew well that the change meant not only more 
infrequent visits, but a numbing sense of distance in 
case of sudden illness, or the coming again of that 
messenger whose summons had twice broken the 
circle. Considerations of health and other indica- 
tions made the path so plain that there was nothing 
but to follow where Providence led, and those who 
went took with them the blessing of her cheerful, 
trustful acquiescence. 

During this year she wrote to her son Charles in 
regard to some changes in the family connection : — 

" So the history of families closes up. One gen- 
eration goeth and another cometh. Shall we not 
live more as seeing the invisible? While performing 
the duties and enjoying the blessings of this life, 
shall not its hold be light upon us, and our position 
that of listening for the boatman's oar to take us 
to the other side? The attractions over there are 
growing stronger and stronger, and its rest and 
blessedness more and more alluring. As I write, 
how many thoughts come trooping through my 
brain, thoughts of love and loving trust ! You were 
always inexpressibly dear to me, but now there is a 
peculiar tenderness mingled with the love, a sense 



The Evening Time. 149 

of preciousness, as you stand before me, the only 
one left of ' the three beautiful lads.' May the Lord 
spare you till after our work is done, and may we 
all go up .to receive the crown with as firm a trust 
and as clear a title as those who are already there ! 

" A number of very sudden deaths lately make us 
feel that we are sure of nothing here, and invariably 
I have a throb of grateful relief when I hear your 
father's step on the stair. 

" I quoted that remark about sending so much 
money out of the country for* 1 missions, at our meet- 
ing last week, and made some comments upon it. 
The command embraces all nations. The condition 
of our sex, for whom we especially labor in unchris- 
tian lands, is wretched, so far below any thing possible 
in this country, that the call is imperative to apply 
the only remedy, the gospel of the Lord Jesus. 
Think of Christian churches and Christian families 
standing as so many beacon-lights in the terrible 
darkness. The five loaves and two small fishes are 
being fed to the multitudes, and by and by we will 
bring back the twelve baskets full to bless our own 
dark places. More ought to be done for both home 
and foreign work, and they react upon each other." 

In September, 1878, she writes to the same son : — 

" How strange it seems that it will be forty-four 
years to-morrow that your father and I have walked 



150 The Evening Time, 

side by side ! How different every thing seems from 
what it did that bright, beautiful morning, when we 
went forth, hand in hand, from the parental roof, so 
unconscious of what we were actually doing. We 
have known joy and sorrow, smiles and tears, but 
the result is all that could be desired. We have 
grown into each other, and the union was never 
more perfect than to-day. Can it be that it is forty- 
two years since I received you, a helpless infant, to 
my loving care ? I can truly say that you have been 
a joy and comfort to me ever since, not wholly un- 
mixed, it is true, like every thing earthly, with anxious 
care, but the blessed Master has borne that for me, 
and given me loving-kindness and tender mercy. 
My prayer is that in coming years your children may 
give you occasion to say as much. 

" In my dealings with the great Intercessor I have 
held on to you and yours, and in the covenant of 
his love I think he has held on to me and granted 
my requests. He has taught me what I could and 
what I could not do, and when I laid the latter unto 
him, he did it in his own time and way. I am com- 
ing to feel it is to him I am to carry all my anxieties 
for your children's highest interests. They are the 
children of the covenant, and many prayers are 
registered for them on high. The boys were so 
affectionate during my last visit it did my heart good. 



The Evening Time. 151 

I feel 1 have a hold upon them which may tell for 
their benefit in future years, when I am gone beyond 
their sight. How soon that time may come, who 
can tell? They may go before me and leave me 
like a shattered trunk. ' As He will.' The things 
of time seem more and more unimportant. The 
certainties of the coming eternity are the only 
realities. I am reading John's Gospel, and was never 
more impressed with the infinite tenderness of the 
great God, our Saviour. His justice and holiness 
stand out like the great rocks, but the mercy over- 
flows them all." 

Mrs. Thompson had felt it a very tender mercy 
that the home of her daughter Mary should be at 
Middletown, only an hour's ride from Hartford. 
Though she missed keenly the frequent sight of the 
daughter's face, one great pleasure of the last year 
of mother's life was in receiving her letters written 
during a tour in Europe. Those six months she was 
following the absent daughter everywhere and sharing 
all her experiences. While the party were in Scot- 
land she wrote with great enthusiasm of her love for 
that country, and for the first time expressed the 
desire she had always had to visit it. It was a dream 
of youth that had survived all her years of care, 
kindling again just now when she was so near the 
life where the desires of the heart are granted. 



152 



The Evening Time. 



Directly after Mary sailed, my mother went for a 
time to Falmouth, — the home of Mrs. Jenkins, her 
husband's only remaining sister, where for many 
years she had been in the habit of spending happy 
weeks. For the first time it was noticed she did not 
care for the sea-bathing that had always been a great 
delight to her. There were some other signs of 
diminished strength, but it was felt to be the most 
delightful of all the visits she had ever made. The 
sisters had long, inspiring conversations on subjects 
that lay nearest their hearts, while she was the very 
life of the picnics proposed by the younger members 
of the family party. As some one wrote of her, 
" Mrs. Thompson was never old." The earth was 
beautiful to her, and the innocent joy of the young, 
while she felt herself nearing a more unfettered and 
satisfying country. 

From Falmouth, she went to Magnolia Beach, a 
region she had before greatly enjoyed, and returned 
in very good health to Hartford in September. 

There she felt more than ever the distance of the 
daughter whom she had been used to feel so near. 
The time before the middle of November, when she 
was to return, seemed insupportably long. It had 
been her habit, if she could not reason herself into 
cheerfulness, to take some course that would induce 
it. Many a day, when, sitting in her room, loneliness 






The Evening Time, 153 

began to oppress her, and her heart began to sink, 
not with great sorrow, for which only God was her 
refuge, but with that indefinable depression which 
grand considerations do not touch, she would lay 
aside her sewing or reading, and go out to spend 
an hour with a friend. Happily she had one or two 
with fineness enough to perceive that it is often the 
bravest hearts and least complaining that most need 
comfort. Or she would decide that it was time to 
attend to the collection on some street, or consult 
in regard to the Church Street Home, or call on 
some one in sickness or sorrow. Any thing that 
savored of weakness, " parading one's own troubles," 
as she used to say, or letting a gloomy face implore 
sympathy, was her especial aversion. There were 
very few who penetrated the secret of her cheerful- 
ness, or knew that the sunshine she carried with her 
was often won by courageous combat. 

This autumn, it was her old habit of flanking the 
enemy she could not vanquish in any other way, that 
made her so ready to shorten the time of waiting by 
yielding to her brother Daniel's urgency to visit him 
in Green Bay, Wisconsin, in connection with the 
Foreign Missionary meeting at Milwaukee. Just 
entering her seventieth year, and unused to taking 
long journeys alone, she was half-startled by her 
own courage when she found herself fairly on the 



154 



The Evening Time. 



way, but she said it seemed to her " Providence 
arranged every thing." 

The home in Green Bay, where her brother had 
lived for forty years, she had never seen, and several 
members of the family. It was a great joy to her 
to renew the old ties as well as to take into her arms 
the brother's grandchildren. She entered warmly 
into the interests of each one, and left behind her a 
fresh spirit of hope and cheer in the household 
atmosphere. 

The relatives in Chicago, with whom she spent a 
few days, retain similar impressions, her face and 
manner remaining as the memory of a lovely picture, 
seen there for the first and the last time. It was 
such a greeting and farewell as she would have 
chosen if she had known what lay beyond the next 
turn in her road, for she held that loving fellowship 
with God and with men, rather than secluded medi- 
tation on " our great and last change," is the best 
attitude in which to be found when the cry is made, 
" Go ye out to meet the Bridegroom." 

From Green Bay she wrote to her daughter Mary : 
" The day of wonders has not ceased ! I am actually 
here; ' Out West,' at Daniel's. Think of it a minute 
and take it in ! Daniel wrote for your father and 
me to arrange for a visit in connection with the 
meeting of the Board. Father could n't come, and 



The Evening Time. 155 

of course I could n't come alone, and so settled the 
matter with a secret feeling that I wanted to come. 
D. was so disappointed, and urged it so strongly, 
that I concluded, as I lacked thirteen months of being 
seventy, I could go alone yet ! I don't see that the 
West is particularly different from the East; the 
large corn-fields in place of our tobacco please me, 
but the rivers have no banks and the brooks are 
muddy canals. This journey answers one good 
purpose, shortening the time. You don't know how 
I miss you on going back to Hartford. I can't bear 
to stay there and know that neither of you is within 
call [referring to her daughter-in-law, Mrs. William 
Thompson, whose home was in Hartford, and who 
was now with friends in Europe]. 

" I am rather ashamed, but it is a new revelation 
of the fact that my life is very much wrapped up in 
my daughters. You may know that your loving 
care is making my last years very happy. I slept 
well on the cars, soothed by the lullaby of the engine. 
The scenery among the Alleghanies was very fine. 
Imagining the clouds to be snow-capped Alps, we 
could fancy ourselves in Switzerland, but here it is 
flat. Just before I left Hartford, Mr. F. took me out 
to the cemetery. The grass had just been cut, the 
Japan lilies were in full bloom and looked elegantly. 
It was a little cloudy, and there was a tinge of autumn 



156 



The Evening Time. 



on the scene. I thought of the contrast between 
this and their present abode, of the joy and the glory, 
and, like old Pilgrim, almost wished that I were 
among them. It won't be long. In nineteen days 
I shall be sixty-nine. There may be many days yet 
of labor and enjoyment. ' As Thou wilt.' " 

October 18. — "There is a certain bounding of the 
heart, when I think this may be the last letter I shall 
write to you in your wanderings. When I returned 
from the sea, the thought of that long three months 
before you would come almost paralyzed me; but 
the Western journey, and now the annual meeting of 
our Board with its attendant cares, have so broken 
the time, the remainder seems short. I met L. 
on the street yesterday while I was hunting maple 
leaves for Miss T. to take to Ceylon. He laughed, 
and said he thought he should find me in some such 
work. Our next communication will be face to face. 
The Lord grant it in his time ! How mercifully he 
has kept us all in our going out and our coming in ! 
Shall we not trust him for the future? I have read 
the fortieth chapter of Isaiah several times lately, 
and every time with new delight. This wonder- 
working God says to us in the next chapter, ' Fear 
thou not, for / am with thee.' Did he not hold you 
with his hand when you slipped on the mountains? 
He will hold you, and the waters too, in the hollow 



The Evening Time. 157 

of his hand when you are tossed on the billows. I 
was hardly rested from my journey, which seems 
more and more like a dream, when the annual meet- 
ing of our. Board came on. I entertained Miss T., 
and enjoyed it very much. She is a valuable woman. 
I bought her a large doll, and Mrs. P. is dressing it, 
to be used in attracting young people around her. 
I hope some of the ladies will give her some games, 
ingenious puzzles and toys. The meeting was fully 
attended, and it is said, the best we ever had. This 
was a great comfort to me, as I felt rather flat in the 
morning after visiting Monday with Miss T. and 
others, callers, taking tea at J.'s, a ' faculty meeting ' 
at Mrs. M.'s, some copying after coming home, and 
a wide-awake night ! I hope we shall do more effec- 
tive work in the year to come. In what I said at the 
close I urged the thought, prominent here and at 
Milwaukee, of personal responsibility. Miss M. from 
St. Augustine was here, and told us about the In- 
dians who were taught there. How little Mrs. M. 
and I thought, when as children we played under 
those old elm-trees, that at this end of our lives we 
should be striving together to plant trees of right- 
eousness in the garden of the Lord. Many childish 
experiences came fresh to mind ; filling my apron 
with corn from father's crib, slipping through a 
hole in the fence and feeding it to the lambs. The 



158 



The Evening Time. 



creatures looked just as sweet to me, when I saw them 
in the pastures in Wisconsin, as they used to then. 

" It will take all winter to relate all our experiences 
on both sides of the water. I thought I knew before 
how much I loved you, but I did not." 

The party returned from Europe in November. 
The faces of the father and mother were the first to 
welcome them at the parsonage door in Middletown, 
my mother feeling her cup of joy to be quite full 
then, and in the succeeding weeks. Thanksgiving 
Day was kept there, and then she went back to Hart- 
ford, busied in preparing a Christmas-box for her 
children and grandchildren in Kansas. Snow-storms 
and accidents delayed it, so that it did not arrive till 
the middle of January. She was troubled, but sure 
she should hear of its coming at last, saying : " The 
Lord has never failed me yet. I committed that box 
to him, and I believe he will take care of it." 

The last letter she received from that home was 
the one announcing its arrival at last. It made her 
happy that the Christmas-tree was relighted, and all 
the joy realised which had been planned. Among 
the gifts for the children, were two picture-frames 
their grandmother had made from shells she had 
gathered three years before on the shore of a pond 
in Goshen, where their grandfather had played when 
he was a boy. 



The Evening Time, 159 

In December a granddaughter of Mr. Ellsworth was 
married at Windsor. It was in the same home which 
had welcomed father and mother in 1834. It has 
seemed beautiful since, that her unconscious farewell 
to that scene and circle should have been in attend- 
ing this gathering with him. It was with wedding 
harmonies that different scenes of her life had closed. 
Whatever dirges there had been, nothing had ended so. 
It had all been in the spirit of the Greek chorus, — 

" Sing sorrow, strife and sorrow, 
But let victory remain." 

To that motto of the early Christians, " To suffer and 
to love," she had always added, " Hope to the end." 

On New Year's Day my father and mother made 
many calls together. The day was fine, making the 
drive and the interchange of " Happy New Year! " 
specially cheerful and joyous. 

" I used often to watch Dr. and Mrs. Thompson 
from my window as they went by," says a lady who 
lived near them, " and think how beautiful it was to 
see persons at their age lovers still. It seemed to 
mean so much more than with the young." 

On the 10th of January my mother set out with 
friends for Boston, to attend the wedding of Dr. 
Augustus Thompson's eldest daughter, the child of 
her old friend Elizabeth Strong. 

On the way she spent Sunday at Worcester, her 



160 The Evening Time. 

face wearing, all the while during the visit, a peculiarly 
serene, happy expression, though she was not quite 
well, having started from Hartford with rather a 
severe cold. There was a detention of two hours at 
the station on Monday morning, owing to a delayed 
train. " Mother was beautiful about it," Mary wrote. 
" She sat like a saint, knitting, and talking with me, 
in a remote corner of the station, seeming to acqui- 
esce sweetly, and concluded to stand by Providence 
still." She was prevented by this from being present 
at the opening meeting of the Woman's Missionary 
Society in Boston, which she had so much wished to 
attend. On Tuesday afternoon she was there. She 
took her seat in the audience, not feeling quite well ; 
but when asked to come forward and open the meet- 
ing with prayer, gave a characteristic reply, " Yes, if 
I am needed." The earnestness of her prayer is' 
remembered, as well as the heavenly spirit of her 
address in reporting for the Hartford society. She 
spoke of the work in Connecticut as not so much 
spreading as deepening, and of the return of Miss 
T. to India. Miss T., she said, went back with the 
romance of the missionary life quite over, and her 
affection for her native land stronger than ever, yet 
for the love of Christ • she was glad to go. As 
she leaned forward over the desk, emphasizing 
the constraining power of the love of Christ, the 



The Evening Time. 161 

audience was deeply moved, feeling the almost tangi- 
ble presence of the Saviour, and a certain thrill of 
new devotion to him. She closed by urging all to 
increased activity " for Jesus' sake." " For Jesus' 
sake," wrote Mrs. Dr. Noble, of Chicago, " it seems 
was her last imperishable word ; a sweet and lofty 
motive for all we try to do in this missionary work." 

Wednesday morning, the morning of the wedding- 
day, my mother went up to the room where her 
sister Mrs. Jenkins was confined with an influenza. 
She sat by her bedside, speaking of many things, 
her journey, her winter plans, &c. The death of a 
friend was spoken of, and Mrs. J. said : " How soon 
that may come to us ! " " Yes," replied my mother, 
" we must look that in the face. At our time of 
life that cannot be far off," and, speaking in the most 
cheerful tone, added : " I rejoice to think it is so. Is 
it not the entrance to what we have been anticipating 
all our lives? Can we not trust the One who has 
brought us so far? He will not fail us at the last. 
The thought of death is any thing but a gloomy one 
to me ; " little dreaming that death was then standing 
only just outside the door. 

On Wednesday evening, January 15, her niece 
was married. My mother had yielded, without ar- 
gument, to a little more elaboration of lace and 
trimming than usual, in her dress for the occasion, 



l62 



The Evening Time. 



saying : " It does not seem necessary to me, but it 
will make you happier, and I am content." Many 
aftenvard said she had never seemed so beautiful as 
on that evening. Her hair was never gray, but dark 
and waving as in her youth, and she had marvellously 
retained the delicacy of her complexion, while a life- 
time of true thinking and noble living had traced the 
loveliness of the soul on every feature. 

It had been planned that she should go up to 
Andover the next day to see the portrait of her son 
Lieutenant Samuel H. Thompson, which had been 
painted the preceding summer for presentation at 
the Phillips' Centennial. A snow-storm set in, which 
grew heavier, and the inevitable exposure of the 
week had somewhat increased her cold as well as 
that from which her husband was sufferine, so the 
cherished plan was given up. But the train which 
carried her back to Hartford that Thursday was 
taking her from her last disappointment. 

When they arrived home it was early evening, a 
cold wind was blowing, and the snow was falling 
heavily. Both husband and wife felt each anxious 
for the other. On leaving the car, Dr. Thompson 
saw that quite a depth of snow lay between the door 
of the waiting-room and the carriage, and, not daring 
to have his wife step in it, went before and brushed it 
away with his feet. As he did it, he felt a strange 



The Evening Time. 163 

chill strike through him, and remembers nothing 
more that happened for many weeks. The next day 
a physician was called, and the disease developed into 
a serious . case of typhoid pneumonia. The wife as- 
serted that her cold was not severe, and insisted on 
taking the main care of her husband. Nothing 
would induce her to relinquish the responsibility 
to any one. She did not express her fears as to 
his recovery, except in hints, and before him kept 
an even, cheerful manner; but those who watched 
her saw the tears dropping down her cheeks while 
she was measuring his medicines. Twice before, her 
nursing had brought him back from death, and it 
was evident she felt that he was in peril, but that she 
might be able to save him again. As she was lying 
down one day, during that week, she took up a little 
collection of Scripture promises, " Words of Comfort 
and Consolation," and began to read. She felt her 
self-command give way, and laid the book down, shak- 
ing her head and saying : " This won't do. It won't 
answer to have any feeling now." " No, mother," 
said her daughter, " we must be sticks and stones 
to be able to go through." Well as she knew her 
mother, she was astonished, not only by her fortitude 
in persisting in nursing when not really able to sit 
up, but at the strength she summoned to control her 
emotion, lest it should make her less able to serve 
the dear one. 



1 64 The Evening Time. 

The last Scripture on her lips was the twenty-third 
Psalm, which she recited, without faltering, by her 
husband's bedside on Saturday morning. 

The last thing she read was a sketch by Aldrich, 
in the November Atlantic, " Our New Neighbors at 
Ponkapog," a charming little story of the nest-build- 
ing of a pair of orioles. It effectually diverted her 
mind for a half-hour, and one of the last sweet smiles 
her daughter saw on her face was when the meaning 
of the story flashed upon her. 

The week wore on, and Saturday the sick one 
seemed slightly more comfortable. My mother in- 
sisted on sending her daughter away for a little 
rest, saying, " What would become of me if you 
should break down?" So rather than pain her by 
insistence, she went. The last person who saw her, 
late on Saturday evening, after friends had left, was 
a faithful person on whom she had long depended 
for certain services. The woman saw her look of 
extreme exhaustion, and begged to be allowed to 
stay and relieve her as far as possible through the 
night. She hesitated a moment, as if thinking it 
would be a comfort, but then refused her offer, as 
she had that of the lady with whom they boarded, 
saying : " No, Kate ; Saturday is a hard day for you 
and Margaret. You are too tired and must rest. I 
can do it one more night as well as I have before, 






The Evening Time, 165 

and then we will see." That was the end ; the over- 
strained cord snapped at last, and when Mrs. W. 
came up early on Sunday morning, she found my 
mother partially unconscious. Physicians and nurse 
were hastily summoned, pronouncing it an aggra- 
vated case of typhoid pneumonia. So much con- 
gestion of the brain accompanied it, that she felt no 
pain, and was conscious of nothing, except a con- 
tinued care of her husband. She would say faintly : 
" I must go to him ; he needs me ; no one else can 
take care of him." This lasted until Monday, when 
the nurse's assurance that she was doing every 
thing for him, and that he was pleased with her care, 
quieted her. " That is good," she said. " Then it is 
all right, all right," and never spoke again, except 
when roused by a question. 

The husband had seen enough on Sunday morn- 
ing to alarm him, and continued to ask questions and 
send messages to her, though so low that he re- 
membered nothing at all of it afterward. "Tell her," 
he said, " I would come to her if it were possible ; 
but if I were there I could not do much for her. Say 
to her, ' /will never leave thee nor forsake thee ; ' and 
another time he said : " If she has any moment of 
consciousness, repeat to her, ' Because I live ye shall 
live also,' and ' Them also that sleep in Jesus, will God 
bring with him.' " The shadow of a smile crossed her 



1 66 The Evening Time. 

mouth. " Father sends many precious messages. 
He says very sweet things," said one, hoping for an 
answer that might be taken back. " Very sweet 
things," she replied. " And always has ? " " He al- 
ways has." 

A nephew repeated to her the verse in regard to 
the four men in the fiery furnace, " And the form 
of the fourth was like the Son of God." She said 
slowly, " As the Son of Man, the Son of Man." Mr. 
H. repeated to her a verse of Baxter's : — 

" My knowledge of that life is small, 
The eye of faith is dim ; 
But 't is enough that Christ knows all, 
And I shall be with him." 

" And that's enough," she said. 

On Wednesday morning her son came in and 
said, " Good morning, mother." She replied, " Good 
morning, my son," evidently understanding. Yet 
when asked how she felt, she always replied, "Very 
well, very comfortable." Every effort was made to 
stimulate her, that she might stay till her daughter, 
who was on her way from Kansas, might reach Hart- 
ford. As that hope died out, one said, " You will 
see Will and Sam, mother, before you see L." "Not 
quite yet," she answered. " What shall we tell her 
when she comes?" She replied with a message of 
love, and at four o'clock that afternoon, January 29, 
she was not, for God took her. 



The Evening Time. 167 

In those four days she had not felt pain. At the 
last it seemed like translation rather than death, and 
no one who loved her has since been able to think of 
her otherwise than as going on with some ministry of 
love, in a life of which she used to say her anticipation 
was that it would be " activity without weariness." 

" Say ye to the righteous, It shall be well with 
him," was the message sent that week by her friend, 
Mrs. R. ; and the thought of every heart was, " She is 
with Christ, which is far better." 

A merciful deafness had suddenly seized her hus- 
band, so that he was shielded from the hint of those 
last scenes, suspecting enough to occasion his rapidly 
growing worse, but not knowing what had passed till 
many weeks later. 

The precious form was laid in his room at the 
Seminary, that all might be, as soon as possible, 
quiet in the house, where he lay hovering between 
life and death. The next morning thirty years had 
slipped away from her, and her face was that of the 
matron of forty, lovely, and lighted up as with some 
peaceful and grand thought. 

She lay where her husband's portrait could look 
down upon her, and the faces of the sons who had 
been waiting for her. Her white hands, with the shin- 
ing wedding-ring, seemed to speak, — those blessed 
hands that had " done good, and not evil, all the days 
of her life." 



1 68 The Evening Time, 

Never were the callas and the heads of wheat 
more fitly offered than to her, nor the white lilies-of- 
the-valley, which she held in her hand. 

It was a sweet thought in one friend, to have bits 
of sea-moss woven with the wreath of roses which 
she sent. 

The last services were held on Friday afternoon. 
It was at the moment when Dr. Daggett was offering 
prayer, and all hearts were uniting in his petition for 
the recovery of him who was so anxiously watched 
in his sick-room that afternoon, that a slightly favor- 
able change was noticed in him. He fell into a quiet 
sleep, and the fatal sinking was checked. 

A choir of students sang the chant, — 

" Abide with me, fast falls the eventide, 
The darkness deepens ; Lord, with me abide. 
When other helpers fail and comforts flee, 
Help of the helpless ! oh, abide with me." 

falling with singular sweetness on the ears of those 
who were beginning to feel what it would be to miss 
such love as hers out of a selfish and fickle world. 
" We ought to dry our tears," said Professor Riddle, 
" and then we shall see how rounded and symmetri- 
cal was her character, and how grand a thing it is in 
this sorrowing world to believe in Jesus Christ, the 
Resurrection and the Life ; to take all as He says it, 
and because He says it, and thus to live in hope." 



The Evening Time. 169 

Many tributes were called out by her death. A 
friend of the Seminary wrote : — 

" In the removal of Mrs. Thompson's personal pres- 
ence, our first thought is of the loss we sustain. But our 
second thought is better. There is no loss. Her life is 
built into this Seminary. It is a foundation stone that has 
risen up as the walls of superstructure have grown higher 
and higher. All the way up from the beginning we have 
been building on it and building with it ; and never while 
the Institute lasts can that life crumble out of the space in 
which we have laid it. 

" Could our wishes have prevailed, we would have de- 
layed her going till she had seen with mortal eye the com- 
pletion of the new Hall, and mingled her voice with ours 
in the shoutings of ' Grace, grace unto it ! ' But our com- 
fort is the thought that, as it is, she shall behold it from a 
far better vantage-ground than ours. 

" If there were any place for tears in connection with 
such a departure, we would let them fall over the loneli- 
ness now flung upon the life so long intertwined with hers. 
But our venerated father and friend has a more precious 
sympathy than any we can give him. He knows that a 
little farther along the now parted streams will unite again 
to flow eternally on together. Meantime we pledge him 
the cheap consolation of our sympathy, and invoke for him 
the priceless sympathy of Him who wept at the grave of 
Bethany. 

" The household that once was so gladsome and bright 
is sadly darkened now. One light after another has gone 
out of it, and the shadows of death and change have 
gathered densely around it. But the dawn of a new and 
brighter day is breaking. The reunion of these scattered 
members has already begun, and will go steadily on under 



1 70 The Evening Time. 

the Master's wise ordering, till at length, no loved one 
missing, they shall be encircled in the arms of an ever- 
lasting life. 

" There are precious memories clustering around this 
school of the prophets. More than one of the saints 
whose names "the Church cannot and will not willingly let 
die, have hallowed it by their labors and their love, and 
now on the roll of these, with sadness, and yet with glad- 
ness, we write lovingly and tenderly the name of Eliza 
Butler Thompson." 

" She was a woman," said another, " of noteworthy 
qualities that commanded respect and kindled affec- 
tion. To a native, sunny kindliness, to a cheerful, 
courageous hopefulness, to a stanch conscientious- 
ness, she added no small executive energy and force 
of thinking. A delightful sense of wholesomeness 
characterized her, an ingenuous straightforwardness, 
and a tenacity of conviction that held its ground 
until there was occasion for abandoning it. Her 
fervor of thought was largely influenced by the great 
Edwards, who was once a pastor in her native town. 
The framework of her theology was garlanded by 
loving deeds, and perfumed by the exquisite blos- 
soms of self-sacrifice. Such truthful constancy, such 
guileless sincerity, such single-hearted devotion to 
truth and humanity, such loving, thoughtful interest 
and sacrifice for kindred and friends, reassure us 
that there is still something of the divine in human 
life, that grand realities are still to be found amidst 






The Evening Time. 1 7 1 

all its hollow insincerities. Those who knew Mrs. 
Thompson will cherish her memory as among the 
precious treasures of the heart." 

In Michael Angelo's painting of " The Three Fates," 
the face of the one who presides over the beginning 
of human life is scowling, terrified, and hesitant. The 
second, who weaves the web, has a look of grand 
patience, as of one moving steadily under a heavy 
load, an expression of force concentrated on endur- 
ance and watchfulness ; a kind of solemn awe, as if 
there was something to hope and much to fear. 
Atropos, holding out the shears and seeming to 
restrain herself only by the greatest tension, from 
cutting the thread before the prescribed instant, turns 
her face in the direction opposite to that in which the 
others look, and sees what inspires her with trium- 
phant eagerness. " At last," her face says, " it is time 
for joy, a bounding into exultant freedom, unhin- 
dered progress, and everlasting life." 

" Blessed are they who are called to the marriage 
supper." 

In the paper which my mother left, designating 
mementos for different members of the family, she 
added, as if to give one more smile to those who 
would read it after she had gone, " In the words of 
old ' Valiant for Truth,' I leave my sword to those 
who come after, and my courage and skill to him 
that can get it." 



172 The Evening Time. 

She closed by saying : " God has given to us all the 
prospect of a blessed reunion in the heavenly inher- 
itance, where two of the number are waiting in sure 
and certain hope. May the dear grandchildren, the 
crowning mercy of our lives, be all included in the 
sure bundle of eternal life. The Lord grant it in his 
time. To Him all the future is committed." 

Under her name, on the family monument at 
Cedar Hill, are the words, 

" Present with the Lord." 

" For all thy saints who from their labors rest, 
Who thee, by faith, before the world confessed, 
Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blessed. 

" Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress, and their Might, 
Thou, Lord, their Leader in the well-fought fight, 
Thou, in the darkness drear, the Light of light. 

" The golden evening brightens in the west, 
Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes the rest, 
Sweet is the calm of Paradise the blest." 

" Give us grace so to follow their good example, 
that with them Ave may be partakers of thy heav- 
enly kingdom." 



University Press : John Wilson & Son, Cambridge. 



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